Here is a sombre, sympathetically observed, if finally sentimental movie from Italian film-maker Uberto Pasolini, known for producing The Full Monty (1997). This was made two years ago and has a small role for Joanne Froggatt – smaller than her prominent position on the poster implies. Her Golden-Globe-winning appearance in Downton Abbey may have got this film its UK release.
The drama itself could almost be a fictional footnote to Carol Morley’s great documentary Dreams of a Life (2011), which tried to reconstruct the life of a young woman who died alone in her London flat. Eddie Marsan plays John May, a shy council official living on his own, whose job is to track down the relatives of people who die alone in the borough; he can see all too clearly that he might suffer the same Eleanor-Rigby fate. Finally faced with redundancy, John is determined to investigate his final case with as much thoroughness as he possibly can. It is a sad, muted film, speckled with many poignant and shrewd little visual touches about what solitude feels like.
