Adapted from the stage play The Band, the musical featuring the songs of Take That comes to the silver screen in very British fashion. Mercifully better than the similar 80s jukebox musical Walking On Sunshine, this movie finds five estranged schoolfriends reuniting as adults for a reunion concert by their favourite band as teenagers. Mamma Mia! and its sequel are very much (and inevitably) the touchstones here, as the timeshifting device of the latter flits effortlessly between the teen and adult incarnations, the consciously diverse band and group of fans for today's audience focuses more on the youngsters initially until halfway through when the film unashamedly relocates to Greece for no other reason than the reunion gig. Both groups (of girls/women) have a warm, lively and easy presence on screen, led effectively by Aisling Bea giving her usual focused and grounded style of performance, but the very thin story is stretched to its absolute limits. What also becomes clear very quickly is that Take That's back catalogue is neither substantial enough nor - like Last Christmas - relevant enough to fit a narrative in a precise and sustained manner, but there are some good moments when the performance/music video recreations collide with real life in the story. Utter nonsense Greatest Days may be, but astonishingly the ending works well as it moves from the big dramatic/emotional story resolution to a joyful singalong finale that brings everyone together,
Thursday, 31 August 2023
VOD: Greatest Days (dir: Coky Giedroyc, 2023)
"Yeah, to me, it's important!"
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