The Last Bus

Timothy Spall stars - brilliantly obvs - as a recently widowed elderly man using his OAP bus pass to travel from his home in John o Groats to his former home in Lands End. It was an understated beautiful film and I cried about 8 times, the last of which were floods of tears. Nice tears mind. Surprise of the year so far.

Ok, its far from realistic, but if you want realism, watch a documentary.

Otherwise put your feet up with a nice glass of vino and let this movie tug at your heartstrings.

I suppose for me the most amazing thing about this rather small movie is Timothy Spall, about 63 during filming, effectively playing a 90+ year old man with a number of physical issues. He is Tom, who at 15 managed to enlist and fight in the war in 1944. In 1950 he met the love of his life in Land's End and they were married. After a personal tragedy his wife's request was to "leave here, and go as far away as we can." So they settled in the far NE corner of Scotland, a community called John O'Groats, and lived their lives.

Then after his wife passed on in 2020, after almost 70 years there, he packs up and leaves everything behind to return by bus to Land's End. This movie is mainly about that trip, with his hand written journal to guide him he tries to recreate, backwards, his trip getting up there all those years ago. But of course not much goes as planned and unique adventures result. Along the way we the audience is treated to short flashbacks to fill in the story of his life.

This is a warm and simple movie, I found it on Amazon streaming, Spall's character makes it a very nice viewing.

Timothy Sprall gives an outstanding performance in this bittersweet movie .

The Last Bus is a journey of loss and grieving to a conclusion of sorts.

A lovely premise, visually very easy on the eye with good use of colours, and an excellent performance by Spall, but ultimately an entirely unrealistic film which can turn the plot laughable at times. With sentimentality taking precident over realism, every element of social media - a seemingly needlessly integral component of the film - shoehorned into the film is far funnier than what was presumably intended.

The emotional manipulation of the audience lands well, spurred on by a heartwarming selection of characters helping the 'hero' along. Whilst some performances are reasonable, all of the acting ability was taken by Spall, with some really poor acting by other surrounding characters, written for bit parts that don't really reflect a recognisable person. It's a pleasant, predictable, easy watch, but difficult to get engrossed in with frequent moments poorly feigning realism.