Starring: Craig Ferguson, Kathie Lee Gifford, Elizabeth Hurley, Phyllida Law, and Ford Kiernan
Distributor: Umbrella Entertainment
Runtime: 98 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2021
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This American romantic comedy tells the story of a lonely widow who travels to places both her and her deceased husband loved. During a stop in Scotland she meets a man she falls in love with. The movie was filmed in Cairndow, Argyll, Scotland, by the side of Loch Fyne. Kathie Lee Gifford wrote the screenplay, stars in, and has co-produced the film. It is not to be confused with a 2018 film that has the same title.
Annabelle Wilson (Gifford) was married to her husband, Fred, for 32 years, and ran a successful hardware store together in Massachusetts, US where they spent a lot of time together watching movies. Movie-watching was their favourite pastime.
Fred’s dying wishes were to be cremated and his ashes taken to 20 places around the world, made famous by the movies he and Annabelle watched and enjoyed together. To Annabelle, her trip was one that remembers Fred at the locations of his favourite movies. Annabelle takes Fred’s ashes in a chocolate box, to honour Forrest Gump’s line, ‘life is a box of chocolates’. She takes his ashes everywhere with her, but to Scotland for one more reason, revealed at the film’s end.
Annabelle travels to Scotland, remembering Braveheart (1995) – an historical Scottish war movie, starring Mel Gibson. It was a special film for Annabelle and her late husband. On the trip, Annabelle checks into a 400-year-old castle which has been converted to an Inn at Loch Lomond, and it is managed by an irritable, crusty, middle-aged Scotsman, Lord (Howard) Awd (Ferguson) who is widowered. Howard owns the Inn he manages, but the Inn is not financially viable. For a week, Annabelle (the Inn’s only guest) and Howard spend time together sharing private thoughts, and sparring in verbal exchanges, as they forge an awkward relationship together. Howard’s behaviour grates on Annabelle at first, but she gradually succumbs to the charm of the ‘sorry sod’ that Howard describes himself as. His abruptness, surliness and attractiveness gives her a new lease in life. In her own words, she is searching for ‘about new everything’.
Howard, however, is due to be married to a woman he is engaged to, and plans to marry Clare (Hurley) in a few days’ time, and he has been tardy in telling Annabelle that his wedding is impending. Clare is a social climber, and it is a marriage of convenience for both Howard and herself. Clare wants a title from Lord Awd, and Howard’s Inn is in desperate need of Clare’s financial help. Clare was ditched by Howard when he married his first wife, years before. Howard, and his best friend, Gavin (Kiernan), know it is not a match, and Howard tells Clare how he feels, just in time.
This is a somewhat predictable romantic comedy made with a raunchy tone to it that at times extracts its humour through sexual innuendo, and it engages in over-obvious scripting. But it also features eye-catching scenery that Scotland distinctively can offer. Rural and village vistas in Scotland open up, and are captured well by the film’s photography. Welding drama, direction, and photography together, viewers need to be content with a simple, undemanding movie that is heavy-handed at times, but escapist and sporadically charming.
The film is unashamedly cathartic, and aimed as a fantasy antidote for difficult times. When the plot gets predictable, and the moral tone of the scripting wanes, the cinematography takes over to keep the film’s momentum up, and some plot-line complexity provided by Law as Arlene Awd, helps to save the day. The film also takes on the pleasurable glow of one of the Trip movies that regularly feature Steve Coogan, and Rob Brydon – insulting each other affectionately, and intellectually baiting each other with double entendres.
The direction of the Trip movies by Michael Winterbottom was subtly controlled; not so this film, but this movie offers engaging, moments of escapism, nevertheless – especially when a surprise ending to the film takes the film to where true love is found, and where Scottish charm shines through.
Peter W Sheehan
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