The Great Escaper (2023)

Oliver Parker's latest film turned out to be Glenda Jackson's final acting bow, she sadly passed away in June this year, but what a final performance this turned out to be. She plays Rene, the wife of Navy veteran Bernard (a ninety year old Michael Caine), who in 2014 made his own way across the channel to join in the 70th anniversary D-Day celebrations after he left it too late to apply for a spot amongst his fellow veterans. Based on a true story, Parker's film does occasionally take artistic license in order to stretch the story out to what is still only ninety odd minutes- despite the story rightly tugging at the nation's heartstrings, it's still a fairly straightforward and uneventful one. That's not to say that a film adaptation wasn't worthy or indeed inevitable, but the ace up Parker's sleeve is his two leads. There's something incredibly wholesome about enjoying the marriage of Jackson and Caine, two stalwarts of British cinema, producing this masterclass in acting with a combined age of nearly two hundred. It has to be said that it's equally gratifying to see the depiction of a seventy year old marriage, two people who are just as in love as they were when they tied the knot, and we hear about the trials and tribulations they've had to face along the way, not least Bernard's understandable struggles after returning from the war. It makes you wonder what obscene numbers of marriage would evaporate if there was a World War now. There's plenty of enjoyable supporting cast along the way here, as well as some genuinely laugh out loud moments, not least Caine letting the tires down of a racing bike, one of many that irritate him cycling along the Hove seafront when he's out on his daily walks. The Great Escaper is without doubt flawed, the various flashbacks Bernard suffers from don't really work although the intention of them does make sense, and the thinness of the story inevitably means various bits and pieces have to be inserted; some which work, some which don't quite justify their place. But the whole thing works thanks to Caine and Jackson, who are utterly believable in their roles, tying the whole thing up quite beautifully, and with its heart firmly in the right place, it would be an extraordinarily nasty individual to find anything here to hate. 7.1/10