I'd love to have seen this in the hands of Lynne Ramsay, who adapted another of Alan Warner's brilliant books for cinema. I am referring to Morvern Callar. A great, sympathetic rendering of a great book.
Michael Caton-Jones, by contrast, has made a ham fist of this.
The Sopranos, the source material, by Alan Warner is a spiffing book.
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, the stage play/musical, based on it, is one of the National Theatre of Scotland's finest hours.
Our Ladies, also based on it, is supremely average. It's just so....whatever.
It's absolutely bang on 5/10.
Completely average. Completely unremarkable. Terribly disappointing.
The script, in part, destroys the source material, but there are some laugh out loud moments. I'll give you that. But that's because of Alan Warner.
The casting is more patchy than my lawn.
The acting more variable than a digital radio in the Highlands.
But my real ire is reserved for time continuity. Our Ladies start at their School in Fort William at, let's say 8.45, but by 11 am they have driven to Edinburgh, rehearsed a choir competition, changed and hit the pubs before they are even open. Come on Michael (Caton-Jones).
And is the book not set in Oban?
The book is supremely feminist and lambasts its male characters but the movie simply caricaturises them. Every single man in this movie is poor (apart from the wee specky love interest of Orla).
It's directed with a lack of sympathy and it's poorly cast all round. I mean one of the girls was 27 when she played the part. Come on man.
I found it tolerable, but only just. I really could not be more ambivalent about this.
Sorry.
