GIVE ME MY SIN AGAIN // A FILM REVIEW OF "A GRAND ROMANTIC GESTURE"
In the sharp, offbeat and refreshing new romantic comedy A GRAND ROMANTIC GESTURE, Gina McKee and Douglas Hodge star as a pair of already married people starting to fall for each other. The refreshing difference is that they are (McKee is 57 in real life and Hodge is 62). It's one of society's many flaws that we don't get to see romances on screen with anyone above, say, 35, but every so often one comes along that challenges the usual filmmaking way of thinking. Thank God for that. McKee plays Gina, a married woman who loves her career but is pushed into an early retirement. Her husband and daughter are delighted with this, selfishly thinking of all the things she'll now have time for, such as cooking for them and free babysitting. She decides to take a class to help burn away the hours in the day. Her family thinks it's a cooking class but instead, she ends up taking a Shakespearean drama class where she meets Simon (Hodge).
Simon is a fellow student in the class and together, they realize that they are the only two older student there. The class begins to rehearse Romeo & Juliet and the teacher ends up casting them against type to play the young lovers. Soon their instant bond starts to brew into something else, something stronger. Against their better judgement, real life begins to imitate art. Gina and Simon start to fall, but with Simon's suspicious wife and their lack of knowing how to engage in such an affair, can this love spell last very long?
What's so appealing in A GRAND ROMANTIC GESTURE, besides the set-up itself, is the two winning leads and the off-beat and sometimes quite stylized humor. Both McKee and Hodge are wonderful in this, particularly McKee. These are two actors who have played many roles in their time and have lived many experiences, fully bringing them all into the roles here, and it shows. Their romance feels real: it's sweet, convoluted and messy. The fact that their families are almost cartoon characters add to the insanity of it all. It feels like a deliberate choice to make Gina's husband, daughter and son-in-law unbelievably clueless and selfish. And Simon's pushy wife starts as a character you want to hate but also allows you into her pain, showing why she reacts so strongly. Writer/Director Joan Carr-Wiggin has crafted a charmer here, but even with all the good, it does drag a bit here and there (even though Hodge can masterfully play drunk, that scene along is 5 times longer than it needs to be). Nonetheless, it's a winner. A winner that should stir even the most cold of hearts.
GRADE: B+
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Joan Carr-Wiggin STARRING Gina McKee, Douglas Hodge, Dylan Llewellyn, Linda Kash, Rob Stewart, Rose Reynolds. NOW PLAYING ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS.