There is a creeping and depressing awfulness to this sentimental silver-years comedy, whose silly and twee style of humour and cardboard characterisation jar with its strained moments of attempted poignancy. It stars Joan Collins as the former movie star Helen, now washed up in a retirement home, who bamboozles an unhappy grandmother (Pauline Collins) into travelling with her to France for her ex-lover’s funeral. There, they have adventures with a gallant Italian artist (Franco Nero). Pauline Collins plays a next-gen variation on her Shirley Valentine persona, just as she did in a comparably terrible Brit film called Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War, from 2002. Writer-director Roger Goldby has a great track record in television and, incidentally, executive-produced Rebecca Johnson’s tremendous urban drama Honeytrap. But this tests indulgence to the limit, and Joan Collins’s shrill and petulant character outstays her welcome after the first few minutes.
