Faintheart

I saw the premiere of this film last night at the Edinburgh Film Festival. It was absolutely brilliant! If you like British films where the underdog makes you go "aww..." then see this film, you won't be disappointed. The young lad who plays the son of the hero of the piece is a brilliant young actor, the fact that I can't recall his name is no reflection on how good he was (I'm just really bad at remembering names). Ewen Bremner was excellent, as usual...as was Jessica Hynes. The film is also memorable for a selection of the crappiest looking cars you'll have seen in a while. The hero's C-reg Volvo estate car is just fantastic. And as for the soundtrack...I'd forgotten how much I used to like Saxon. Support the British film industry, when they produce wee gems like this it would be rude not to.

Faintheart (the character) is a Viking reenactor (as opposed to a Bravehearted Scot) who, despite having married and sired a son already in middle school, has never quite matured enough to be able to separate his real and fantasy lives. As a consequence, his wife has separated from him; and the film concerns his search for a pathway back into her heart. (Hey, "Richard", what's with the eyeliner?)

As the first Yank to review this film, it's not clear to me why, at a key re-enactment, the audience would cheer for the Vikings over the Normans, unless the Vikings were merely the "home team" at the site of the event, or unless the Brits, after nearly a millennium, still resent the Norman invasion. (Historically, the Vikings launched raids on England, but it took the Vikings who had settled Normandy to later conquer England. According to geneticists, however, due to DNA similarities across sources, the percentage of today's population with Norman blood is indeterminate.)

Faintheart (the movie) is an unusual setting for the standard RomCom. The execution is well-done, but unexceptional. The acting is good all around, but one is continually impressed with the juvenile leads. Faintheart's son, Martin (Joseph Hamilton, in his first credited film here), looks like a reincarnated teenage Jodie Foster, with the covered-left-eye haircut. Martin's girlfriend, Emily, is played by Chloe Hesar, an accomplished TV actress, apparently appearing in her first big screen effort.

Faintheart is recommended for an easy-going one hundred or so minutes of undemanding entertainment.

I saw Faintheart on a flight from Hong Kong to Sydney and loved it so much, I watched it three times and wanted the flight to go on longer (and I loathe flying!). It was beautifully scripted, guffaw-out-loud funny and very touching at the same time. There wasn't a weak performance or an extraneous line in the entire screenplay, the hero's character development was believable and the baddies were satisfyingly vanquished. The sub-plot involving male, female (and juvenile) Trekkies was absolutely hysterical. If you liked Brassed Off, you'll love this. (Note to female EastEnders fans - you won't believe how Joe, the schizophrenic teenager whose barmaid mum had an affair with Phil Mitchell, has grown up (Paul Nicholls)!)

I saw this last night, and what's special about it is that it was filmed in my home town of Ludlow (the shots of the Castle and the Church are landmarks in the town like the Empire State Building is in New York and the Eiffel Tower is in Paris), and also in Hereford just half an hour away, so I was dead eager to see it. Especially since I missed seeing it filmed because I was on a stunt course in Cardiff during that week in summer. After watching this movie, I was glad that I don't live in LA or New York (used to seeing a film in the cinema shot just down the road), because I found it fascinating to see a film with shots of the park, the castle, and the main street that I grew up with.

Luckily, I was not disappointed. There is not a single weak link in the cast. There are moments that make you laugh out loud so often (such as the moment when Ewen Bremner's character realises that he's landed a date with a fellow trekkie), and when you want to cry (for example, when Eddie Marsan's character realises that his hobby of battle re-enactment is the reason his relationship with his family has gone awry).

I would love to go on, but I fear it'd spoil the story. If the climax didn't warm you, you have a heart of concrete. A real feel-good film that will brighten your day without a doubt.

Knowing nothing about Faintheart before watching it I was fooled by the opening sequence where two armies were preparing for battle so imagine my surprise when a cell rang and the scene was revealed to be a re- enactment in modern world. After that I was excited to see what the movie has to offer because it had never occurred to me before that there are no comedies about Live Action Role Playing and anyone who is familiar with that hobby knows that it is a goldmine of hilarity.

Faintheart indeed takes great advantage of its unique setting and shows us how imaginative people have to be to be able to enjoy dressing themselves up as knights or mages and swinging a sword made of plastic. However, at about 70% into the movie they seem to have run out of funny scenarios and choose to close the show by introducing clichés that we have seen so many times before.

The main male cast consists of Ewen Bremner and Steve Ryland who i hadn't heard of before but after looking them up on IMDb I was surprised at how many movies I had seen without noticing them. The female lead is Jessica Hynes from the amazing series "Spaced" looking better than ever. It was interesting to see her act in a role that requires a somewhat more serious approach but she pulls it off quite well.

Overall Faintheart is an enjoyable piece of British cinema and if I had kids I would make sure they saw this movie.