Watching: Stan & Ollie

[white_hart]

January is always a good time of year for films, as the award hopefuls get their main releases in the hopes that they'll still be at the forefront of the judges' minds in a few weeks' time. Come summer we're often hard put to see a film a month, let alone one a week.

I was a bit unsure about Stan & Ollie, not being a Laurel and Hardy fan, but that didn't really matter, as the film is about their relationship rather than their work. It's mainly set during their final tour of Britain in 1953 and is much more melancholy than I was expecting a film about a comedy double-act to be; it's a film about a long-term couple nearing the end of their lives together, and the fact that their relationship is platonic and professional rather than romantic doesn't change that. Steve Coogan and John C Reilly are fantastic in the title roles (I am always surprised by just how good an actor Coogan is, as having known him first and for several years only as Alan Partridge I never think of him as a 'proper' actor), and although most of the focus is on the two men and if it manages to be a Bechdel pass it's a very marginal one there are brilliant supporting turns from Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda as Lucille Hardy and Ida Laurel.

It was probably my least favourite of the three films we've seen this month so far, mainly because there weren't any lesbians the subject-matter was less intrinsically interesting to me, though I'd say it was probably a better film than Colette, if not as beautiful to look at. The Favourite is still hands-down the best, though.