Okay, I've never seen Britain's Got Talent or, indeed, any similar television programme. I'm not an opera buff (or even an opera bouffe)and I first heard the name Paul Potts earlier this year when his PR team were placing squibs in the showbiz columns of National newspapers in order to promote this film. I did see James Corden in History Boys at the National Theatre but he didn't make an impression on me; I didn't see him in One Man, Two Guv'nors though I did see the show itself after he'd left it. About the only thing I did knowingly see him in were several episodes of Gavin and Stacy which I enjoyed as a show and also Corden's performance.
So this is what I brought to the film. I agree one hundred per cent with the person who wrote here that the film exploits just about every cliché in the book - and yet it is apparently true. For me the revelation was the gorgeous Alexandra Roach, who dominated every scene in which she appeared. So far as the 'love' story goes it is both implausible and yet the kind of love story everyone aspires to. I was reminded of the 'love' story in Somebody Up There Likes Me (also a 'true' story and based on Rocky Graziano's own autobiography (albeit presumably 'ghosted' for him), which in turn was similar to the one in Rocky, which was fictional. it was not lost on me that both the real Graziano and the fictional Balboa were both boxers and unlikely to have been bullied either as children or adults - or at least not for long - whilst the real Potts was about as far from a boxer as it's possible to get or, to put it another way, love, real, unselfish love, can come to anyone. Because of the 'lovable cockney sparrer' persona he has cultivated Corden struggles to play colorless as the role demands but apart from that this is a fine movie.
So this is what I brought to the film. I agree one hundred per cent with the person who wrote here that the film exploits just about every cliché in the book - and yet it is apparently true. For me the revelation was the gorgeous Alexandra Roach, who dominated every scene in which she appeared. So far as the 'love' story goes it is both implausible and yet the kind of love story everyone aspires to. I was reminded of the 'love' story in Somebody Up There Likes Me (also a 'true' story and based on Rocky Graziano's own autobiography (albeit presumably 'ghosted' for him), which in turn was similar to the one in Rocky, which was fictional. it was not lost on me that both the real Graziano and the fictional Balboa were both boxers and unlikely to have been bullied either as children or adults - or at least not for long - whilst the real Potts was about as far from a boxer as it's possible to get or, to put it another way, love, real, unselfish love, can come to anyone. Because of the 'lovable cockney sparrer' persona he has cultivated Corden struggles to play colorless as the role demands but apart from that this is a fine movie.