A moving story and terrific performances from Caine and Glenda Jackson, in her final role, lift this melancholy real-life tale of a pensioner’s escapade in France
avy veteran Bernard Jordan missed the boat when it came to applying to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings. But, encouraged by his wife, Rene , he decides to make the trip under his own steam, absconding from his care home in Hove with his essentials in a blue plastic bag. The premise of this real-life pensioner adventure seems tailor-made for a gently comedic big-screen treatment, a chipper flat-capped caper to the continent.
But in fact, the film is unexpectedly melancholic in approach, with Caine delivering a gruffly heartbreaking performance as a man belatedly confronting crippling survivor’s guilt and the knowledge that the psychological wounds sustained in battle never fully heal. Director Oliver Parker favours no-frills functionality; both the second world war flashbacks and the contemporary scenes have something of a TV movie patina.
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