Festival

The Edinburgh Festival deserves a film. It is a strange occasion in a great city, and huge numbers of people around the world have experienced it. It brings its own array of bizarre characters and situations, mixing them with the locals, and then takes them away again just as quickly, until next year when some of them come back for more. If that's not a recipe for some interesting comedy/drama, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately this film fails to hit the mark. It is structured quite well, and I liked the idea of following one venue through the course of its day. The overall atmosphere of the city is well-caught too, on the whole, and people who know Edinburgh in August will recognise it.

But its main flaw is lack of empathy. There are quite a lot of characters, some of whom are quite funny, but very few of whom are particularly likable and attractive. Those who are likable often lack authenticity, and everyone suffers from a lack of depth. The episodic plot is also patchy - some of the events that befall certain characters have nothing at all to do with the Edinburgh Festival and seem almost to have been put in as time-fillers.

To be fair, there are some funny moments and quite a few good lines. But put it this way: If it's on TV and not costing you anything, then by all means watch it. However, I paid £3 to rent it, and by the end I felt it wasn't really worth the money.

Ok. More fun location spotting than watching the film. Not even that redolent of a late summer in Edinburgh. A lot of actors under used. Nothing fleshed out, no one particularly interesting. Very superficial. Doesn't add up to much. Ultimately a bit pointless. If art is this depressing why bother?

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If you've seen Altman's 'Nashville', you've kind of seen this. It's just the era and backdrop that are different. Substitute Daniella Nardini for Geraldine Chaplin, Mangan or O'Dowd for Keith Carradine and you have the general idea. Griffin's best-known piece, 'The Book Group', also had multiple plot lines, but had time to develop over two three-hour series. In 'Festival', for instance, the plot line with the crazy Canadians had a fantasy quality to it, but didn't seem to be going anywhere. On the other hand, watching Petra staring at a drink, trying not to fall off the wagon, was heart-wrenching, as was the chat-up scene where she realizes as she talks about her job, that she has no real life apart from Sean, and hateful as he is he is all that stands between her and a return to drinking. That was brilliantly done, as was the young actress falling for Sean because she sees him as nobody else does, because she doesn't know his work or how famous he is. I wanted to like this film a lot more than I eventually did. It is worth seeing, but like so many British movies, it doesn't warrant the big screen treatment when a TV series would have been better.

Being from Edinburgh and suffering/enjoying the International Festival & Fringe for many years this film was always going to be of great interest to me. I did expect it to be dreadful, as so many UK-produced efforts can be, but actually ended-up enjoying large parts of it.

Edinburgh during the festival can be a strange place for the natives - the city is descended upon by hordes of media-types and desperate actors/comedians/whatever. During this time many locals will simply let out their flats at exorbitant rates and go on holiday thereby avoiding the whole rather disagreeable event.

With Festival you can play 'which celeb comedian is that meant to be' as well as 'which pub are they in' and 'where's that again' - being a local helps and you get the same familiar sense of enjoyment as when reading Ian Rankin's Rebus series (also set in Edinburgh.) The acting is good and there are some genuinely funny moments although the dialogue can be quite weak in places.

By miles, the worst element in this film is the music. It's intrusive, adds nothing to the drama and on occasions completely ruins the scene.

All-in-all if you're not from Edinburgh, Festival is hugely entertaining and will probably make you want to come here for next year's ever - if you need somewhere to stay I've got a lovely flat near the Assembly Rooms...