Review: Saving Grace (2000)
There's a new genre of film appearing at the ‘Plex these days. It's the Quirky British Village That Comes Together genre. Think of THE FULL MONTY, WAKING NED DEVINE and LOCAL HERO. They're all about how the folks in the town support some ziggy plot that one of the locals has hatched. They are contagiously genial and charming films -- the kind of movies you watch with a little grin on your face the whole time.
Now comes SAVING GRACE, a sweet exploration of how the best things in life are the things you don't necessarily plan for. Grace Trevethyn is a rather proper, orchid-growing, middle-aged British lady. When her husband dies suddenly, leaving her in debt, she decides to grow marijuana in her greenhouse in a last ditch effort to save her home. Using the same techniques she does with her pampered orchids, Grace grows a crop of weed in her greenhouse that would bring Jerry Garcia back from the Dead. When it's time to harvest and sell her crop, everything goes wackily wrong, all at once. But the crusty lovable townspeople save the day.
And there's the rub with SAVING GRACE. It's infectious and fun but it doesn't really cover any new territory. It's not hard to see where it's going. (Although the coda has a few undetected surprises) And everyone's so predictably benign in their eccentricity. Certainly there must be one dullard or mutant or evildoer in the bunch. Maybe it's more of a sub-genre than a full-fledged genre unto itself. Maybe it's an offshoot of that big category I fondly call `British Humor' -- ranging from the incomprehensibly successful Benny Hill to the sublime Monty Python to those ladies-on-holiday films. It's all about the pluck and determination of post-War Britain -- the Britain that remembers how important it is to get along and just be nice.
Grace is played with spunk and kewpie-doll cuteness by Brenda Blethyn -- who deserves a lifetime supply of whatever vice she chooses for her work. Each time this woman appears on screen, she is thoroughly someone else. From SECRETS & LIES to LITTLE VOICE to A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, Ms Blethyn offers up cinematic portraits of vulnerability and pluck. Her Grace glides seamlessly from grieving, frightened widow to giggly co-conspirator to not-so-suave drug dealer to...well...that would just spoil too much of the fun. Suffice to say, Ms Blethyn is convincing every step of the way.
As in it's precursors, SAVING GRACE depends on its cast of small town eccentrics to lift it above the ho-hum. There's the priest who loves vampire movies and the doctor who reads Jackie Collins. The female love interest is a fisherman and the male love interest -- Grace's partner in crime -- thinks being responsible is highly overrated. Two elderly shopkeepers enjoy Grace's `tea' quite a lot. A drug dealer has to pick up his daughter after her flute lesson.
Inside these delightful characters are real-looking actors with spirit and appeal. They work together like they've all lived in the same small coastal town forever and ever and happily coexist with each other's idiosyncrasies. They are the backbone of this new sub-genre. And they make the two movie hours of your life perfectly satisfying. Even if you have seen it all before.
People who inhale and people who don't need not fear: SAVING GRACE appeals to anyone willing to go along for the high. There's nothing deviant or crude about marijuana in SAVING GRACE. No evil pot-heads. No lurking junkies. Just a bunch of really appealing folk from the countryside of England, enjoying a romp. And a toke.
--Lesley Abrams Tucson AZ 8.30.00
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