Finding Your Feet

Sandra (Imelda Staunton) is an aristocratic housewife, living in an opulent home in an opulent neighbourhood. But after she catches her husband Mike (John Sessions) snogging another woman in the wine cellar, she moves out and goes to live with her rebellious, working class sister Bif (Celia Imrie). Against Sandra’s own regal preferences, she must learn to adjust to this drastically different environment.

Older characters were a producer’s nightmare (since a cinema-going audience mostly consists of the youth of today), but after the success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in 2012, it’s now stupid to ignore them. And unlike Marigold Hotel, Finding Your Feet also observes no need to balance the old with the young. We’re with these seasoned pros throughout, including the likes of Timothy Spall and Joanna Lumley, and there’s rarely a youth in sight. There doesn’t need to be, when the audience is already treated with a small ensemble of theatrical talent.

Many of the characters are more functional than real. Staunton is the fish out of water. Imrie is the moral centre. Spall is the love interest. And Lumley is, of course, the funny one. Screenwriters Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft try their best to form backstories to the secondary characters, particularly with Charlie (Timothy Spall) who has the most tragic character journey. But, despite a few tears, they aren’t explored in great depth.

Leonard and Moorcroft also love cracking out the clichés, the most groan-worthy of which is “take a leap of faith”, which is clumsily inserted as the moral message of the final act. However, this cheese, in an otherwise cheeseless film, doesn’t hinder the viewer’s enjoyment. The movie is fun, funny, and charming without ignoring the greater upsets that life has to offer.

Finding Your Feet is another nice British romcom, not lacking tragedy and even possessing a whiff of elderly existentialism. It’s a pleasant story to watch unfold and even the occasional, irritating slips into cliché can be ignored.

Euan Franklin

Finding Your Feet is released nationwide on 23^rd February 2018.

Watch the trailer for Finding Your Feet here: