|
| Very Annie-Mary |
|
  (6/10)
|
Runtime: 104 |
| Public Rating: 8.00 (6 votes) |
Director: Sara Sugarman |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: comedy |
Year: 2001 |
| Writer(s): Sara Sugarman |
| Distributor: Empire Pictures (US), FilmFour (UK), Becker Entertainment (Aus) |
| Reviewed by: Avril Carruthers |
| |
Produced by Graham Broadbent and Damian Jones
Starring Rachel Griffiths, Jonathan Pryce, Josh Richards, Joanna Page, Rhys Miles Thomas, Ruth Madoc, Liyr Evans, Ioan Grufford, Matthew Rhys, Donna Edwards, Rhian Grundy, Wendy Phillips, Anna Mountford, Gwenllian Davies
This quirky and charming comedy set in the village of Ogw in rural Wales has many things going for it. The first is Rachel Griffiths expanding her extensive repertoire by playing the eponymous heroine, who is around thirty but acts like a teenager.
She’s an awkward, clumsy and submissive daughter of Welsh baker, Jack Pugh (Jonathan Pryce). He’s a self-important, petty tyrant who happens to possess the finest tenor singing voice in all Wales; is called “The Voice of the Valley” and looks like a skinny version of Pavarotti. (In fact he drives his baker’s van all over the countryside wearing a Pavarotti mask, white tie and tails and singing his heart out through loud speakers fixed to his van.) Annie-Mary also possesses a fine singing voice but has buried it under layers of cloaks of docile servitude to her domineering father, ever since she had to give up a singing scholarship to Milan when her mother fell ill fifteen years before. Her mother died and so, it seemed, did Annie-Mary’s chance to live a life of her own.
Her insufferable father thinks a cabbage for her birthday should fill her with joy and forbids her to practise piano unless he is there. Naturally she does what any spirited, submissive person in her position would do. She ashes her clandestine cigarette in his food, and when a dishcloth catches fire and the remnants end up in the stew as well, it seems best to leave it there.
Her best friend and soul mate is sixteen-year-old Bethan Bevan (Joanna Page), who is dying of cancer and who has a clarity and pragmatic wisdom born of the bedridden tedium of illness and the prospect of a shortened life. What confuses Annie-Mary about her own unfulfilled life is very clear to Bethan. The townsfolk are collecting money to send Bethan to Disneyland, but Bethan wants only to rest, and to hear Annie-Mary sing.
Some of the funniest scenes are when Annie-Mary joins a pop group (called Hinge, Minge, Fringe and Bracket) and they all head off to a Cardiff talent contest. The proceeds are to go towards sending Bethan to Disneyland and unexpectedly they win.
The lead-up to the Cardiff episode involves her father having a stroke, and Annie-Mary’s disastrous attempts to take over the bakery, so this part of her journey resembles not so much a fledgling tentatively leaving the nest as a catapult-assisted missile. The cringing false starts, the exuberant but teeth-grindingly bad decisions she makes through inexperience and immaturity are almost, but not quite, set off by the soaring brilliance of her creative flexibility (the inflated rubber suit scene had everyone in the cinema in stitches) and her sincere contrition when she loses everything she’s gained. Nevertheless, she finds within her the kind of steel needed to make amends and justify Bethan’s faith in her.
Among the creditable comic performances are Ioan Gruffudd and Matthew Rhys as Hob and Nob, Ogw’s gay grocers, who are not as superficial as they would like to be. Ruth Madoc is wonderfully malicious as Mrs Ifans, a widow who with seductive and culinary arts becomes Jack Pugh’s just desserts.
The movie’s strengths are in its individuality and lightness which create a kind of magic. Some uneven patches, notably Jonathan Pryce’s not quite striking the right pitch after his character’s stroke – which would have been better served by a drama-queen’s tragic martyrdom - are not enough to spoil the overall effect. It’s fast paced and full of music and humour and tenderness. Everyone ends up getting what he or she should and the singing is wonderful.
|
 Printable Version
|
Do you agree/disagree with this review of Very Annie-Mary? Let your opinions be heard in our forum.
|
Buy the Poster of Very Annie-Mary (Click Here)
|
|
|
|
