Our Ladies

Being Scottish, I had to see this movie. It was fun to watch and it was definitely a good date night. Definitely worth a watch.

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.

And a whip in the side of catholic school systems, the allmighty nuns, and a sprawling entertaining young choirgirls fantasies how the world of erotics and romantic functions.

The cast ensemble are deviously well chosen, the polarisation between the members of the crowd are just immense and the laughter and jokes flies like a spitfire doing the turmoil roll at full boost. They fit like a skiier in a condomsuit, and appears on the screen as if theyve been class mates for real...

the stashing, costumes, locations and production design arewell considered, the filmographic temperature and choice of dim colours makes this an open door back to the 90's. Soundtrack and quality of musical score is well chosen and executed, and when it comes to moral it gives the grumpy old man goosebumps all over my body. So let yourself be inspired of a gracious story about a crowd of young lassies from the scottish highlands entering the edinbourough castle and princess street with glitter, glamour and the voices of nightingales.

Its a recommend.

Probably a good 7.5 out of 10 if I could.

Started a little slowly and built as did the characters. Ok, I'm a boy, but the sex obsession seemed a little over the top, but it was fun and funny in places, but built to something more.

I am not sure what, bar friendships and coming of age, but I was left feeling thoughtful and moved. It's a worthy watch, and I would recommend it as such.

Chock full of cliches, but no worse for that, this coming of age movie follows five friends from Fort William over 24 hours as they venture to Edinburgh for a school choir competition and back home again. A few secrets are told, a few lessons are learned and a lot of laughs are had.