Finding Your Feet by Meg Leonard - 7 out of 10

Finding Your Feet by Meg Leonard
7 out of 10


The message of this motion picture seems to be "money does not buy happiness".

Although one description of the film purports that Sandra Abbott aka Imelda Staunton is a representative of the middle class, I saw a very rich household she shared with her spouse.
As she is celebrating her birthday, she hears some noise and when she enters the room, she sees her husband kissing her good friend.

Supposedly a good friend, for when questioned, they admit to having started this affair when they all went to Italy, five years ago.

That is what the aggrieved, cheated wife shouts as she packs and abandons the mansion.
She moves with her sister, Biff, who lives in a poor neighborhood.

Lady Sandra Abbott - she has gained this title, or perhaps her husband - is for a while rather haughty.
Her presence seems hard to tolerate, never mind enjoy.

Biff has a very good friend, Charlie Glover played by the fabulous Timothy Spall.
The actor has lost a tremendous amount of weight and looks very different from the artist we have seen in his memorable previous roles.

If at first they seem to belong to different worlds, perhaps not even the same species, Sandra and Charlie become ever closer, up to the point where the separated woman learns that the man has a wife.
She should not be so apprehensive and rigid when she rejects the new friend, although we can understand that she has just been disappointed by her cheating husband and is more than sensitive on the matter, another blow could cause her definitive breakdown.

The situation is different though, Charlie's wife has suffered from Alzheimer's for years, she has no idea who he is.
Indeed, she causes a major scene when he comes to see her one time and she is sure this is a mean stranger, stars shouting and there is a serious commotion.

For practical purposes, Charlie has a spouse in name only.
Biff meanwhile becomes very sick.

That is shocking, for she is biking, swimming in a lake in winter- granted, this is the mild British winter, not the Scandinavian sort - dancing.
Recent studies have demonstrated that dancing is better that many types of physical exercises.

Nonetheless, the rebellious, active woman has a serious diagnosis.
And the film becomes somewhat predictable and less that stupefying.

It does not fail, but it is not overwhelming either.