Love Sarah

Really enjoyable romantic comedy set in London (I think Marylebone High street) about a small Cafe / Bakery. A great cast led by the always brilliant Celia Imrie makes you engage with the storyline. A feel good movie that left me with a smile on my face. I hope you like it.

I like to start with the positives about a film I review after all 6/10 is an average to good score from me . I'll begin with the delicious cakes and pastries that feature in the film and are provided by the bestselling food writer and restaurateur author and chef Yotam Ottolenghi especially the Matcha Mille crepe cake used in the plot.

I was amazed to read this very light weight script that took 3 people to write Eliza Schroeder (also director ) a mistake in my opinion as this is her first major film .Other writers were Mahalia Rimmer, and Jake Brunger who also wrote the screenplay.

The film is about a young woman who enlists the help of her mother's best friend and her eccentric estranged grandmother to fulfil her late mother's dream of opening a bakery in Notting Hill. It is now shooting in London.

The Director Elizabeth Schroeder said in an interview about the film "Having lost my mother whilst developing the film, my perspective on the outcome and the story I wanted to tell changed. Creating a story that was uplifting and touching whilst dealing with loss in my life became very important to me." and the film is dedicated to her late mother which is fitting. Luckily for Love Sarah, its cast abounds in talent and their chemistry is enjoyable to watch and easy to root for. The kind of feel good family drama Love Sarah wants to be is somewhere in this film, but hidden under layers of unnecessary character backstory and too many plot threads.

Celia Imrie as Mimi is delightful as the bittersweet Grandmother and the Supporting cast of Rupert Penry -Jones as Matthew in a relaxed romantic role of not much substance is also good. I also enjoyed Shelley Conn as Isabella and Shannon Tarbet as Clarissa the granddaughter. I was only talking about mediocre script writing recently and this film would fit in that category like a beautifully decorated that when tasted sometimes disappoints when tasted " Love Sarah " to my taste is just average.

This is a lovely story where you see beautiful cakes, lovely people and lots of happiness for everyone. What is there not to like!

Judging from the other reviews, this movie seems to have divided opinions. From a purely technical point of view, in my opinion, the movie is very well made. A nice story, well structured screenplay, and good performances from a quite impressive cast. My guess is the themes explored around loss and grief may not be everyone's cup of tea but it really depends what you are looking for. Again though, I thought it was a nice little watch.

To start, this movie was a very nice change after of all the bad that followed the world 2020 due to Covid. Although the story starts out very sad it turns into a very heart warming tale. If our movie theaters were open (they are not yet in the Pacific NW of USA) I would have gladly paid full price to go see it. There isn't much trivia about it here on IMBD but I wonder if it was written from the writers own personal experience, in relation to loss. At the end of the movie there was a "remembrance" of a person who passed, as well as the song at the end, about love, missing you, its all for you (or something like that)? Maybe I just noticed (or perceived that) because I have felt that tremendous loss after my son passed. Anyway, I found this to be a joyful, wonderful story of love, loss and resilience. Thumbs up to the writer, directorial staff and the actors and actresses!