Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2010

©2005 MAYQUEEN PRODUCTIONS,LLC All Rights Reserved

This delightful bit of elderly escapism is a tour de force for Joan Plowright (77 when this was made in 2005). Dame Joan plays an elderly woman seeking a bit of independence from her daughter in Scotland. She books, sight unseen, a room in a rundown London residential hotel for people at a certain stage of life. She’s not delighted with the place, but makes the best of it, getting to know the other regulars, a who’s who of aging British acting talent. She boasts about her notably no-show grandson, then one day by accident meets a young writer/street musician (Rupert Friend’s first role) who agrees to sit in for the too-busy twerp, and the two begin a platonic May-December friendship. Not everyone’s cup of tea; young people will call it “slow,” older people “unhurried,” but its charm will reach all. American director Dan Ireland (The Whole Wide World) has made a movie of the kind they just don’t make anymore. There’s a song performed halfway through, “For All We Know,” that’s a show-stopper. And Rosemary Clooney’s devastatingly good rendition of the 1934 tune over the closing credits has had me humming it for weeks.