Starring: Sam Claflin, Lily Collins, Suki Waterhouse, Tamsin Egerton, Art Parkinson, Christian Cooke, Jamie Winstone
Distributor: StudioCanal
Runtime: 102 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2014
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It was only after the film was over that this review realise that are present in Dublin. Everybody speaks which with such clear British accents. Half of the film is located in Dublin, the other half in Boston.
This film is based on a 2004 novel, Where the Rainbow Ends. Perhaps the film does end at the end of the rainbow but the film could have been called Long Years Journey into the Evident. So, this is the story of rosy and Alex, childhood friends, teenage best friends, adult distant friends and the ups and downs of their lives.
Rosie and Alex has shown as young kids, bonding, sharing experiences with each other, each at home with the other. But, at Rosie’s 18th birthday, she drink is too much, flirts, can’t remember anything afterwards. In the meantime, Alex, for some reason that he (and we) can’t quite work out, does not see Rosie romantically and enters into a relationship with the vain Bethany. On a kind of rebound, Rosie has a one night stand with Greg, satisfying to him after a few moments, unsatisfying to her, when she has to go to hospital because of her not being able to find the condom.
The best played laid plans… Alex has a scholarship to Harvard to study medicine and off he goes. Rosie was intending to go to America to do a hotel management course but, morning sickness, and…
Supported by a wonderful and wise father, and her mother, Rosa gives birth but instantly bonds with her daughter and decides not to put up for adoption.
Years pass, Rosa gets a cleaning job at a hotel, works with her best friend and confidante, Ruby, brings up her daughter, with the usual bouts of colic, sweetness, first steps and the years pass. Greg come back on the scene and, for some moments, we hope that all will be well and Rosie, Greg and the daughter will become a family. But.
In the meantime, Alex gets tangled with a supremely snobbish young woman, invites Rosie to visit Boston, a visit which is a disaster. And so on…
By the time 12 years have passed, the daughter is verging on teenage and disagreeing with her mother, there is a death in the family which brings grief, Bethany arrives on the scene as a top model and goes to Boston to see Alex. Nothing ever seems to go right for either Rosie or Alex.
Lily Collins and Sam Claflin portray Rosie and Alex over a period of 12 years, from 18 to 30, and have a good on-screen rapport. So, what begins like one of those raucous teenage films, drinking, loud music, fumbling sex, gradually becomes the story of adolescents moving into adult hood. Which means that it turns out better than might have initially been expected.
12 Random Films…
