After suffering a stroke in 2005, former Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins was able to say only four things: “yes”, “no”, “Grace Maxwell” (his wife’s name) and “the possibilities are endless”. “It sounds profound,” says Grace in this gorgeously poetic tale of the redemptive power of love, “but when you’ve heard it 85 times in a day, it seems slightly less so.” Recounting Collins’s slow recovery and tentative return to the stage in day-dreamy form, film-makers James Hall and Edward Lovelace attempt a tour of the singer-songwriter’s mind as he revisits his past (childhood locales, fragmentary memories) in search of the future. “Saying something true, or valid, or specific is never easy,” admits Collins as he rediscovers his voice through drawing and singing, Grace strumming his guitar with her right hand as he holds down chords with his left. Images of fish and fowl flutter across the screen, evoking a growing sense of freedom, the songs of 2007 album Home Again (recorded before his stroke, but mixed after) and the sounds of Collins’s plaintive soundtrack reconfirming his vibrant musical charms. Through it all, Grace is his rock, his muse, his inspiration; I honestly can’t remember when I last saw a happier screen couple.
