SAVING GRACE (Fine Line) Starring: Brenda Blethyn, Craig Ferguson, Martin Clunes, Tcheky Karyo, Valerie Edmond, Tristan Sturrock. Screenplay: Craig Ferguson and Mark Crowdy. Producer: Mark Crowdy. Director: Nigel Cole. MPAA Rating: R (drug use, profanity, adult themes, brief nudity) Running Time: 93 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
How whimsical and amusing does a film need to be before it ceases to matter that it lacks a center -- not just that its center is slight, but that it has no center whatsoever? Such a question plagued me at the end of SAVING GRACE, a comedy with that uniquely British quirky appeal. It was a pleasant enough experience for most of its running time, but what in the world was the point? There are certain kinds of comedies that can get away with a complete lack of an identifiably human character arc. This doesn't seem like it should be one of them. How does one reconcile 90 minutes of grins with the nagging impression that the script was in some ways terribly sloppy?
Perhaps the best course of action is simply to roll with it. It's fairly easy to roll along with the story of Grace Trevethyn (Brenda Blethyn), a recent widow and amateur horticulturist whose husband apparently committed suicide. A possible reason for his action soon becomes apparent to Grace: He has left a mountain of debt from failed business ventures, and nothing but the Trevethyn's Cornish seaside manor to pay it off. Faced with homelessness, Grace turns to risky fund-raising venture. After using her greenhouse to revive the failing marijuana plants of her groundskeeper Matthew (Craig Ferguson, who also co-wrote the script), Grace figures she can erase the debt by turning her home into a hemp plantation. Grace and Matthew team up, trying to keep a low profile in a small town before facing the even more daunting challenge of finding a dealer to buy their crop.
From the outset, SAVING GRACE seems to have nearly every element in place for a wonderfully entertaining piece of middle-brow humor. Blethyn anchors the film with a performance that's more restrained than recent outings like LITTLE VOICE, effectively playing incongruous moments like her attempts to sell her product on the streets of London while dressed like the Queen Mum. There are well-crafted supporting characters like the town's pot-head doctor (Martin Clunes) and edgy conspiracy theorist Harvey (Tristan Sturrock), and a strong sense of place from the wild Cornish coast. Perhaps most refreshing, there's an unapologetic quality to the film's just-say-yes story line. This is not the place to look for a strong message condemning Grace's illegal activities; it's more the place to look for scenes of elderly ladies making tea from some special leaves they find in Grace's greenhouse.
It's all quite a bit of silly fun for those with no moral objections, until SAVING GRACE winds to its conclusion and it becomes evident that there's something missing -- namely, a third act. It could have been about Grace coming to terms with her late husband's secret life -- including an affair with a chic Londoner (Diana Quick) -- or about a sheltered woman forced to confront the real world. It could even have been about Matthew's quest for responsibility under pressure from his girlfriend (Valerie Edmond), with Grace serving more as a colorful supporting character herself than as the protagonist. But SAVING GRACE doesn't bother with developing its characters. Grace doesn't appear to grow or learn much of anything, and Matthew's change of heart is tacked on almost as an afterthought. There's no sense of consequence anchoring anything that goes on in SAVING GRACE, like the unemployed FULL MONTY crew's search for a renewed sense of their manhood. It all begins to seem like little more than an excuse on which to hang a bunch of jokes about giggle fits.
That hole in the third act is filled by an odd visit to a roguish French drug dealer (Tcheky Karyo), and by a postscript twist that comes out of absolutely nowhere. It would feel like a complete violation of Grace's character, if not for the fact that Grace's character isn't developed carefully enough for there to be that much violation. Such carelessness should be enough to sink a frothy enterprise like SAVING GRACE, but somehow it doesn't quite. Too many of the quirks work, and too many of the giggle fits inspire similar reactions from the audience. It's no masterwork of comic craftsmanship, but it does the job of taking you somewhere goofy and free of responsibility even though you know it's not particularly good for you. And maybe that's a fitting quality for a film about unapologetic pot smokers. Ninety minutes of grins sounds about right.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Cornish hemps: 6.
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