Hampstead
Original post date: 31 March 2019
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
In the sweepstakes for unconvincing romantic movie couples let us add the names of Diane Keaton—here a poster girl for the notion that older single women are totally hopeless with money—and Brendan Gleeson, playing a Dubliner living rough on London’s Hampstead Heath. Also unbelievable is the plot of this movie, which is kind of odd since it is actually inspired by a true story. In real life, Harry Hallowes was from Sligo, not Dublin, and before he died in 2016 he expressed the intention of willing his slice of the heath, which he won in a court battle, to the British royal family, calling them the “the last bastion of refinement and sophistication.” In this flick his fictional alter ego, Donald Horner, likes to lunch next to Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery, which is kind of funny because Donald is basically an anti-government survivalist and loner who refuses to pay taxes or for any city services. By the end of his court battle to claim squatter’s rights, the local do-gooding social justice warriors have rallied around him as some kind of working class hero. And it’s not just the film’s politics that are muddled. We never really grasp exactly what Keaton and Gleeson see in each other except that maybe Keaton enjoys annoying the tony neighbors in her apartment building. Chief among these is Lesley Manville, who is so good as the manipulative Fiona with the constant honey-dripped jabs that we nearly have more sympathy for her than anyone else. As with Roger Michell’s Notting Hill two decades ago, the real star is the titular London neighborhood, which comes off a wonderful place to visit or inhabit. While an interesting watch, for my money this is the weakest of director Joel Hopkins’s string of comfortable late-in-life romantic comedies. Maybe it’s because, unlike Last Chance Harvey and Love Punch, it does not have Emma Thompson.
Rating: ✭✭✰✰
In the sweepstakes for unconvincing romantic movie couples let us add the names of Diane Keaton—here a poster girl for the notion that older single women are totally hopeless with money—and Brendan Gleeson, playing a Dubliner living rough on London’s Hampstead Heath. Also unbelievable is the plot of this movie, which is kind of odd since it is actually inspired by a true story. In real life, Harry Hallowes was from Sligo, not Dublin, and before he died in 2016 he expressed the intention of willing his slice of the heath, which he won in a court battle, to the British royal family, calling them the “the last bastion of refinement and sophistication.” In this flick his fictional alter ego, Donald Horner, likes to lunch next to Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery, which is kind of funny because Donald is basically an anti-government survivalist and loner who refuses to pay taxes or for any city services. By the end of his court battle to claim squatter’s rights, the local do-gooding social justice warriors have rallied around him as some kind of working class hero. And it’s not just the film’s politics that are muddled. We never really grasp exactly what Keaton and Gleeson see in each other except that maybe Keaton enjoys annoying the tony neighbors in her apartment building. Chief among these is Lesley Manville, who is so good as the manipulative Fiona with the constant honey-dripped jabs that we nearly have more sympathy for her than anyone else. As with Roger Michell’s Notting Hill two decades ago, the real star is the titular London neighborhood, which comes off a wonderful place to visit or inhabit. While an interesting watch, for my money this is the weakest of director Joel Hopkins’s string of comfortable late-in-life romantic comedies. Maybe it’s because, unlike Last Chance Harvey and Love Punch, it does not have Emma Thompson.
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