The Great Escaper – gentle and powerful

Back in 2014, the year of the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Royal Navy veteran and care home resident Bernard Jordan hit the headlines because he had left it too late to get included on an official trip to the commemorations in Normandy. So he decided to make his own way there – encouraged by his wife Rene.

This is the film of his ‘great escape’, written by William Ivory and directed by Oliver Parker.

Without the knowledge of anyone – except Rene – he left the care home they lived in together and made his way to France on his own. On the way, he was ‘adopted’ by Arthur, an upper-class RAF veteran with his own bucketload of personal demons from the war.

Initially reported missing, with police and others alerted, Bernard’s story caused a media hoo-ha and saw him dubbed a ‘hero’, with newspaper headlines across Europe.

‘The great escapee’ was how the mainstream news media dubbed him – but it is not indicative of what this film version of the story reveals.

There are arguably issues about how well all the flashback sequences of Brendan and Rene’s relationship work, but there can be no complaints about how the contemporary relationships are portrayed.

Though personally, I think that Will Fletcher and Laura Marcus, as the WWII versions of Bernard and Rene do really good jobs.\This is a really sweet film – not least because Michael Caine as Bernard and Glenda Jackson (in her final role) as Rene – are simply fabulous, but because it really catches at the sense of grief and PTSD suffered by veterans of all generations.

Shout outs also to John Standing as Arthur and Danielle Vitalis as a care home worker.

It is, in the second half, a blubathon. But not in an exploitive way. Just so moving – not least in a scene where Bernard, who wouldn’t buy German produce at the beginning of the film, encounters a German veteran from the D-Day landings.

When I say it’s a “blubathon”, it’s not mawkish. It addresses, in a nuanced way, the trauma that those young men suffered then – and in the years after.

This is a gentle, yet very powerful film. Streaming now on Sky.

An exquisite mediation on loss – and observing life

It's 30 March 1924, and the Sheringham, Niven and Hobday families have gathered for lunch by the Thames at Henley – a Mothering Sunday ritual that they have performed for some years and maintain, even though both the Niven sons and two of the three Sheringham sons were killed in the 'Great War'. Yet the reality of their collective loss is unspoken.

This time, the lunch is taking place just days before the remaining Sheringham sibling, Paul, is due to marry Emma Hobday. Neither of them is particularly enthusiastic about the situation, but feel they have no alternative.

For Paul, it’s complicated by a long-standing affair he’s been having with Jane Fairchild, a maid at the Nivens’ home. On the morning of the annual lunch, he tells his parents he’ll join them later, as he needs to cram for his law studies.

Instead, he’s surreptitiously called Jane and arranged for her to join him at the family home. The staff have also been given the day off (as has Jane) and they’ll have the place to themselves. But when Paul finally leaves for Henley, tragedy strikes.

Told from Jane’s perspective, Eva Husson’s 2021 adaptation of Graham Swift’s 2016 novel of the same name jumps between 1924 and further stages in Jane’s life, including her marriage to Donald, a philosopher, and her own development as a successful writer.

The film’s been described as working “at a frustratingly chilly remove”, but this does actually work in a number of ways. First, as Donald notes to Jane, her having been a maid has turned her into an observer of people.

Second, in a state of grief, Mrs Niven questions Jane about her past, checking that it really was the case that she has no family (she’d been abandoned at birth), before saying that that means she’s lucky, as she has nobody to lose.

Third, the bottled-up emotions of the upper classes also plays out here – so it’s shocking when Mrs Niven breaks down at the lunch and swears that all the children have gone.

In other words, an emotional remoteness is pertinent to the film.

In many ways, it’s a meditation on grief and loss – and pushing through that. The screenplay from Alice Birch is very good, while Jamie Ramsey’s cinematography is lushly sensuous, Sandy Powell’s costume design is sumptuous and Morgan Kibby’s music is spot on.

The supporting turns are excellent – not least from Olivia Colman and Colin Firth as the desperately unhappy Nivens, but also from Sope Dirisu as Donald and Josh O’Connor as Paul.

But the film rests on Jane and Odessa Young gives a really fine performance in a film where so much is about the camera on her face.

As an added attraction, there’s a delightful, sparkling cameo from Glenda Jackson, in her penultimate role, as the older Jane.

I’d bought the disc on a visit to the BFI Southbank late last year, remembering having seen the film advertised and also aware that I am becoming a big Colman fan.

It’s pure coincidence that I decided to watch it today, given that tomorrow is Mother’s Day, but it will be on Channel 4 tomorrow (Film4 was one of the production companies involved) and is well worth a watch.