An old curmudgeon, with a wife dying of cancer and a disaffected son, learns to enjoy life again after the funeral when he is persuaded to sing a sentimental solo in a jolly OAP choir
British writer-director Paul Andrew Williams’s new film sounds about as gloopy as you can get — and a large section of it is too, especially towards its determinedly feelgood end. But it has its saving graces, and the chief of them is the performance by Terence Stamp as Mr Grumpy. In all his long years as a charismatic screen icon, he has never done anything better than this on the screen.
He never plays for sympathy and is assisted by a screenplay that is surprisingly touching in its early scenes, before it goes for the wet hankies.
Vanessa Redgrave as his wife is good too but you expect her to deliver in every film. Stamp is the revelation: an actor who’s been given the chance to act after all these years, and one who seems to be enjoying the experience.
Otherwise Song for Marion is a mixed bag. There’s Christopher Eccleston as the son and Gemma Arterton as the jolly choirmaster, both of whom transcend material which ultimately freezes into cliché. This, from the director of London to Brighton (which gained him the Evening Standard’s Most Promising Newcomer Award in 2006), ought to be about the perils and frustrations of old age but ends up skating the question for the sake of easy audience approval.
