Film Review: What We Did On Our Holiday
A film about three children meeting their dying grandfather for the last time plays out like an extended sitcom episode
What We Did On Our Holiday is engineered for maximum emotional impact. What’s more, it’s shameless about its shamelessness. We’re pretty much told in the first few minutes that we’re going to be watching a film about three sitcom-cute children meeting their dying grandfather for the last time. The grandfather in question is Billy Connolly, the veteran comic and actor who was diagnosed with cancer and Parkinson’s last year.
The directors, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, are the creators of the UK TV series Outnumbered, which became known for giving child actors the freedom to improvise their dialogue. Though the film is only loosely inspired by the series, whose cast has made way for better-known actors (David Tennant and Rosamund Pike play the parents), it nevertheless plays out like an extended sitcom episode. If it doesn’t end up as manipulative as it ought to be, it’s largely due to the efforts of Connolly, who has both the appearance and the feistiness of a billy goat. He plays especially well with the three children, who probably see in him a kindred spirit.
It also helps that the second half is surprisingly frank and unsentimental in its treatment of death, depression and divorce. In a film that spends a good deal of time talking about the Vikings, laughter, fittingly, becomes a shield.
What We Did On Our Holiday released in theatres on Friday.
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