Best thing for it is a bit of fluff such as Love and Other Drugs with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, distinguishable as one of the few romantic comedies in which you are not sure what's going to happen, that boy may not get girl.
The film is set in 1995 which allows for a few cheap Viagra jokes as Jake plays the part of a medical rep pushing it, when first it appeared. My interest in Viagra extends no further than wondering how so many emails offering it can end up in the inbox of a nice girl like I. Furthermore, Jake was on 'my list' (of famous men to run off with) until I saw the scenes in which he crept about in the nude, clutching a cushion to the, em, affected region. Well may he have the body of Michaelangelo's David ;I'm right off him now. I was already irritated by the women falling at his feet in the early scenes; later there appeared to be some sort of orgy. It was all very retro-sexist. The actor playing Jake's brother was too obviously cast just for laughs; improbably ugly, short, fat and charmless. The producers seemed to be channelling Carry On Anything fused with Roman Britain, with a touch of Pillow Talk chucked in.
About Anne : she had long dark curly hair, intended to suggest a bohemian nature and not King Billy, as I had to keep reminding myself. I say now that she is very likely to be Oscar nominated as (a) she played a sick person and (b) she didn't get one the last two times she was nominated. She was very good indeed in this-she may have thought she was in a different film altogether. Mind you she was also extremely nudey for a lot of it, really her and Jake's clothes pretty much fell off as soon as they clapped eyes on each other. Best have Bromide in your tea before you go to see it.
You can have propah Earl Grey, milk in first, before you see The King's Speech and you can be confident that the characters will remain fully dressed in delightful period costumes. (Of course no one will go with you if you say 'period drama'- I know someone who says 'I'd rather have my period' ) Anyhoo, I turned up keen to see Helena Bonham-Carter with the bad Queen Mother teeth, much commented on by Auntie Doris on the occasion of Charles' and Diana's wedding; 'Och, look, she has hardly a bar in the grate.' But no, false teeth would have inhibited her cut glass accent, as clipped and brisk as Celia Johnston in Brief Encounter. It made most of what she said very funny, the best example of which was when the overfamiliar australian Speech Therapist, unaware that she was the Duchess of York, told her to 'pop back another day and I'll take your details.' She replied quite witheringly, 'May husband and I nivah discuss owah pehsonal lives and we dewn't POP'
Guy Pierce did a great turn as Edward, Duke of Windsor, as did Timothy Spall as Churchill (he has clearly gone up in the world, after a long spell in the demi-monde) and it was so good to see Anthony Andrews-I have been quite worried since Brideshead. Colin Firth is likely to be nominated for an Oscar, for reasons very similar to those regarding Anne Hathaway , funny enough. He's come a long way since Bridget Jones, especially in the sense that he looks less uncomfortable these days. Have a look; when he's snogging Bridget, it's excruciating to watch. He's much better off with a period sort of peck on the cheek or that unmoving lip-pressing thing, exemplified in Brief Encounter. Lucky he's too old to have been considered for Love and Other Drugs, I am quite sure neither of us could have coped.
Such a relief about Anthony, I was quite worried too. I'll celebrate with a nice cup of tea - milk in last of course. But then to crack an obscure joke - I'm very counterpane.
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