MILITARY WIVES SPEC D: Peter Cattaneo. UK. 112 min. Sep 6, 2 pm, Elgin Sep 7, 1:15 pm, Scotiabank 2. Rating: NNN
The latest in the apparently never-ending line of British dramedies about English people finding purpose through an unlikely pastime – “inspired by true events,” of course – Military Wives casts Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan as two very different women who form an unlikely alliance to start a choir for women living on base to pass the time while their husbands are deployed in Afghanistan.
The script, by Roseanne Flynn and Adult Life Skills’ Rachel Tunnard, charts the familiar rocky road to an uplifting finale. And two decades after The Full Monty, director Cattaneo can make these in his sleep. (Certain staging and plotting choices suggest he may not have given this project his full attention, at any rate.)
But Scott Thomas and Horgan work awfully hard to find real emotion in their cookie-cutter characters, so at least that’s something.
