There's never been much doubt that the UK can make great romantic comedy films, so it has always looked a bit paradoxical that we have so often come unstuck with unfunny or lame or too-crude or too-oafish sitcoms - most especially when set against many effortlessly-funny American examples.
"Home" on that basis looks absolutely great and comes highly-recommended from me. It's written by Rufus Jones, who also stars as Peter, but while he gives himself some good lines (and rightly so), the fun is shared out quite evenly.
"Fun" may be the right word to use here, as "Home" is not a riot of hilarity a la "Modern Family", but it is witty, pithy and thoughtful, though (as a typical British failing) it is a little too foul-mouthed and sexual for its own good. It would be at least as funny if the latter aspects were toned down by 50%, given the chance to make pretty good jokes about post-Brexit Britain, British-German relations (!) attitudes towards (and on the part of) immigrants (in this case actually even asylum-seekers), misunderstandings and cross-cultural awareness.
In essence, Sami the Syrian (Youssef Kerkour) is found in the boot of the car of this three-person, slightly-dysfunctional "family" when they return from France to Dorking, and Sami is a well-educated, English-speaking, English-teaching, thoughtful, loving and cultured man who is determined to love Britain even as he notes its eccentricities, absurdities and occasional hostilities. He is just too nice to turn in to the authorities.
As he notes, Sami was really part of the elite in his own country, but war has brought him low. There is just the right level of pathos and reality here in that regard, but it's nicely tempered by relations with the three who adopt him, and also by the fact that his own wife and kid have become separated, arrived in Berlin, and already become enamoured of both Germany and the couple there who have taken them in.
How, then, can post-Brexit Britain compete with the attractions of Germany, and all the more so when the German host of wife and kid is a famous, wealthy heart surgeon while Peter of the British family is a quantity surveyor and his partner a teacher. She is forthright northerner Katy (played by Rebekah Staton) who is sexily outspoken at times, as when she tells the Germans in a moment of "can't keep it in any longer" outrage that our country was "so keen to side with the underdog that we actually chose deliberately to become one" - this interesting mix of the funny, the erudite and the meaningful is what "Home" is mostly all about, and in it's own whimsical and slightly jaded way it's patriotic too.
What's not to like?
"Home" on that basis looks absolutely great and comes highly-recommended from me. It's written by Rufus Jones, who also stars as Peter, but while he gives himself some good lines (and rightly so), the fun is shared out quite evenly.
"Fun" may be the right word to use here, as "Home" is not a riot of hilarity a la "Modern Family", but it is witty, pithy and thoughtful, though (as a typical British failing) it is a little too foul-mouthed and sexual for its own good. It would be at least as funny if the latter aspects were toned down by 50%, given the chance to make pretty good jokes about post-Brexit Britain, British-German relations (!) attitudes towards (and on the part of) immigrants (in this case actually even asylum-seekers), misunderstandings and cross-cultural awareness.
In essence, Sami the Syrian (Youssef Kerkour) is found in the boot of the car of this three-person, slightly-dysfunctional "family" when they return from France to Dorking, and Sami is a well-educated, English-speaking, English-teaching, thoughtful, loving and cultured man who is determined to love Britain even as he notes its eccentricities, absurdities and occasional hostilities. He is just too nice to turn in to the authorities.
As he notes, Sami was really part of the elite in his own country, but war has brought him low. There is just the right level of pathos and reality here in that regard, but it's nicely tempered by relations with the three who adopt him, and also by the fact that his own wife and kid have become separated, arrived in Berlin, and already become enamoured of both Germany and the couple there who have taken them in.
How, then, can post-Brexit Britain compete with the attractions of Germany, and all the more so when the German host of wife and kid is a famous, wealthy heart surgeon while Peter of the British family is a quantity surveyor and his partner a teacher. She is forthright northerner Katy (played by Rebekah Staton) who is sexily outspoken at times, as when she tells the Germans in a moment of "can't keep it in any longer" outrage that our country was "so keen to side with the underdog that we actually chose deliberately to become one" - this interesting mix of the funny, the erudite and the meaningful is what "Home" is mostly all about, and in it's own whimsical and slightly jaded way it's patriotic too.
What's not to like?