If you are looking for the feelgood film of the summer look no further than Greatest Days. Particularly if you are female and in your forties. It's got lots of Take That songs and a great cast, what's not to like?
Aisling Bea (This Way Up), Alice Lowe, Jayde Adams and Amaka Okafor play four friends now hitting middle age who reunite when NHS nurse Rachel wins tickets to a Take That reunion gig in sunny Athens. There's a brief dilemma whether to take her partner (played by Marc Wooton), but of course it's a no brainer. It's time to get the gang back together.
Of course their lives have changed since they were pop-loving kids. The film juxtaposes their carefree shooldays with their complicated lives now. There's a lovely bit of relatable nostalgia at the start with Rachel hurtling home from school to turn on her tiny portable telly to check Ceefax much to her dad's annoyance (with added EU gag). Each teen has their own character, swot, rebel, cool one, a bit like a boy band really.
The movie, directed by Coky Giedroyc and written by Tim Firth, is an adaptation of the stage hit The Band, and can't really go wrong because whenever things look like dipping along comes a Take That banger with the dancing cast invariably joined for these scenes by a sort of fantasy modern racially diverse version of Gary Barlow and co, leaping around the scene.
There are points where the plot stretches credulity - an airport scene which goes more seamlessly than any check-in I've ever gone through, no post-Brexit jams here - but then this is not meant to be a fly on the wall documentary. It's a bit clunky at times, but it's more Mamma Mia! than a Louis Theroux-style probe into the nature of fandom and friendship.
Aisling Bea is particularly good as Rachel, torn between the past and the present, between settling down and giving up, but the others have their moments to, erm, shine too. There's a sad reveal that isn't very much of a reveal to anyone who has been paying attention, but needless to say things that can be resolved successfully are resolved before the final song.
Oh and you do get to see three members of Take That, but it's only briefly, if you nip out for some Maltesers you might miss them.
Greatest Days is on general release now.
Pictured left to right: Alice Lowe, Jayde Adams, Aisling Bea, Amaka Okafor.
