I saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival. I chose it because it was after a British play and I generally have a good opinion of British playwrights. Was I ever wrong! This film should not have made the cut for a TV tear-jerker, let alone an International Film Festival.
Where do i start? It is about a hospital - or is it about an old people's long term care home? Not sure if the film writers know the difference. Not sure if they visited a long term care home. Or talked to someone who works there. Or talked to someone who has a loved one in such an institution. In the film, the main administrator is also the head-nurse and the one who bathes the patients and changes their depends. The other nurse - who seems to also be a PSW - is attending to her charges as if she were Mary Poppins doing her supercalifragilistic singing. In the saddest place on Earth: an old people's home. The doctor is also some sort of cheer-me up do-gooder who LOVES his patients. (I had my father in a Long Term Care Home and I can tell you that this film depiction of such a place is beyond silly and inaccurate)
Even some lines in the film would be laughable if they weren't sad: for instance "People who don't love their parents put them in long term care homes". I am sure the guy who wrote this line did not take care 24 h a day of a parent with dementia, incontinence, diabetes and a broken hip.
The story is also fake with the cruel capitalist who becomes a bleeding heart "socialist" and the "public service announcement" towards the end. Even the generous intended message of the film - save the public medical British system and let's take care of our beloved elderly people! - ends up being muddled and confusing while raising the question: should we trust the system?
The acting is below mediocre - but the poor actors did not have a chance with such script.
Why, then, did I give it 2 stars rather than 1 star? Well, it was nice seeing Judy Dench again (doing her best in the role of a ... patient cum detective)
