Tony Towers is a successful night club owner in Nottingham by the time he is 45, at Christmas 1985. He is about to open 6 new night clubs. But the night life as a showman and impresario has taken its toll; he has lost his first wife through his lifestyle and is totally estranged from his son. Now his second wife-to-be, nervous returning with him to meet his family at Christmas, knowing that they may regard her as far too young for him and a gold digger. Tony's younger sensible businessman brother Roger, once his partner, advises Tony that he is making a mistake expanding too fast. Full of the life of the party, Tony wants to buy champagne for all the passengers in his carriage and moves forward towards the buffet car.
Then, the Christmas fantasy of Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, and Groundhog Day, kicks in. When he moves towards the front of the train, time for him advances 10 years into the future to 1995 and he finds out that life has not turned out as he'd hoped. In 1995 he's lost all his clubs and his second wife and is now a drunken bum. Throughout the carriages, a theme which keeps popping up is a one off single 45 of a song the pair sing in a record booth for the price of a single record, the sleeve hand-written with cartoon images of Tony and Roger, the two Towers brothers.
When he he returns to the 1985 he realises that he has seen the future and can change that ruined future by including his brother in his plans and toning down his own lifestyle. Going forward to 1995 again, the future is even bleaker, although Tony changes his own life, his brother Roger inherits the lifestyle Tony has avoided. Going back down the train, he goes back and forth between 70s and 90s, to the 60s and 50s he finds the changes he makes each in hopes of improving his and Roger's outcomes, but it all becomes more and more of a disaster, more for his brother Roger than for him, but now he is concerned more for Roger than himself. He is bewildered and has no memories between the decades, at one point he has a second child, a young daughter in her 20s and in what must be 2015 he also has a grandson in his late teens.
****SPOILERS****** He goes back as far as he can go, the 1940s, and discovers what he has suspected, that his brother is actually his cousin a wartime pregnancy for a very young girl, so he decides to jump from the train and stop his aunt giving up her son, and hopes this will change the self-destruction of Roger. It works, the aunt accepts that she can cope with being a single parent with her sister's support. Tony hurts his leg in the fall and a WWII soldier puts him back on the old steam train.
Tony stands up, at it is the "present day", presumably 2020 (or 2025, as the sequences have been in decades), so now he is an old man in his 70s/80s. He walks with a limp, he's alone on the train, with the 45rpm self-made single now has only Tony on it (and we know he can't sing or play an instrument) and Roger would bear Tony's mother's surname and wouldn't be a Tower. He has a single faded polaroid photo of his (late?) wife in his wallet. He gets off the train as it arrives in Nottingham, the terminus of this "Last Train", where it is the present day, i.e, somewhen in the 2020s, but definitely not 1985 when the train journey started. All the relatives meeting the passengers on the platform depart, leaving Tony as the only one left, last off the train and alone on the platform, no luggage, no Christmas gifts, no-one to welcome him home and he's clearly not expecting to be met. Then, we see a piano left on the platform (do provincial stations even have them?) and a single hand plays a short melodic refrain on the top notes of the keyboard. Tony turns and smiles, presumably at his brother (the hand has a ring on one finger but cannot recall if the brother (or grandson) had a ring) and that is the end of the movie.
What?!
What happened to the happy ending? What happened to those 40 years between 1985 when the train set off and now? Did Tony get on the train in the 2020s, fall asleep and dream of what his life might have been like in 1985? Clearly, his life between 1945 and 1985, when he started this journey, must have turned out completely differently having jumped off the train, but did he re-experience those new years? By the way he limped to an empty seat and examined the record and his wallet and found the photo, it is clear that his life from 1945 to now was different, and that the 1985 train ride could never have happened.
So I am completely confused, if none of that 80 years happened, what was the point of the film? What was the lesson he learned in the last 35/40 years? Does he even recall what happened in the last 80 years? Is family meeting him? Or is he just going home to his lonely room in the old folks' home after a day out on his own?
The acting by Mr Sheen was sublime, the make-up and set dressing for the different decades was excellent, the concept of the film for 95% of it was intriguing. This could have been a brilliant film, if I could understand that in comprehensive ending. But with the other 3 classics I mentioned, they all end up at the exact time they started, with lessons learned and everything now right with the world. This ending, jumping from a 1985 reality to the present day reality with a lot of fantasy in between was a disaster. Did I miss something? What were they thinking? The ending made the whole thing from 1945 to now completely unknown, did he have a happy life, did he have a family? What kind of life had he led and what was he left with in the present time? If it was Cousin Roger playing the ivories, who was rather tardy in collecting his semi-crippled cuz from the train, maybe his life was full and fulfilling and didn't flash almost unexperienced before his eyes in 90 minutes that Tony's life appeared to have done. 5/10 for effort, nil points for the stupid ending.
Then, the Christmas fantasy of Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, and Groundhog Day, kicks in. When he moves towards the front of the train, time for him advances 10 years into the future to 1995 and he finds out that life has not turned out as he'd hoped. In 1995 he's lost all his clubs and his second wife and is now a drunken bum. Throughout the carriages, a theme which keeps popping up is a one off single 45 of a song the pair sing in a record booth for the price of a single record, the sleeve hand-written with cartoon images of Tony and Roger, the two Towers brothers.
When he he returns to the 1985 he realises that he has seen the future and can change that ruined future by including his brother in his plans and toning down his own lifestyle. Going forward to 1995 again, the future is even bleaker, although Tony changes his own life, his brother Roger inherits the lifestyle Tony has avoided. Going back down the train, he goes back and forth between 70s and 90s, to the 60s and 50s he finds the changes he makes each in hopes of improving his and Roger's outcomes, but it all becomes more and more of a disaster, more for his brother Roger than for him, but now he is concerned more for Roger than himself. He is bewildered and has no memories between the decades, at one point he has a second child, a young daughter in her 20s and in what must be 2015 he also has a grandson in his late teens.
****SPOILERS****** He goes back as far as he can go, the 1940s, and discovers what he has suspected, that his brother is actually his cousin a wartime pregnancy for a very young girl, so he decides to jump from the train and stop his aunt giving up her son, and hopes this will change the self-destruction of Roger. It works, the aunt accepts that she can cope with being a single parent with her sister's support. Tony hurts his leg in the fall and a WWII soldier puts him back on the old steam train.
Tony stands up, at it is the "present day", presumably 2020 (or 2025, as the sequences have been in decades), so now he is an old man in his 70s/80s. He walks with a limp, he's alone on the train, with the 45rpm self-made single now has only Tony on it (and we know he can't sing or play an instrument) and Roger would bear Tony's mother's surname and wouldn't be a Tower. He has a single faded polaroid photo of his (late?) wife in his wallet. He gets off the train as it arrives in Nottingham, the terminus of this "Last Train", where it is the present day, i.e, somewhen in the 2020s, but definitely not 1985 when the train journey started. All the relatives meeting the passengers on the platform depart, leaving Tony as the only one left, last off the train and alone on the platform, no luggage, no Christmas gifts, no-one to welcome him home and he's clearly not expecting to be met. Then, we see a piano left on the platform (do provincial stations even have them?) and a single hand plays a short melodic refrain on the top notes of the keyboard. Tony turns and smiles, presumably at his brother (the hand has a ring on one finger but cannot recall if the brother (or grandson) had a ring) and that is the end of the movie.
What?!
What happened to the happy ending? What happened to those 40 years between 1985 when the train set off and now? Did Tony get on the train in the 2020s, fall asleep and dream of what his life might have been like in 1985? Clearly, his life between 1945 and 1985, when he started this journey, must have turned out completely differently having jumped off the train, but did he re-experience those new years? By the way he limped to an empty seat and examined the record and his wallet and found the photo, it is clear that his life from 1945 to now was different, and that the 1985 train ride could never have happened.
So I am completely confused, if none of that 80 years happened, what was the point of the film? What was the lesson he learned in the last 35/40 years? Does he even recall what happened in the last 80 years? Is family meeting him? Or is he just going home to his lonely room in the old folks' home after a day out on his own?
The acting by Mr Sheen was sublime, the make-up and set dressing for the different decades was excellent, the concept of the film for 95% of it was intriguing. This could have been a brilliant film, if I could understand that in comprehensive ending. But with the other 3 classics I mentioned, they all end up at the exact time they started, with lessons learned and everything now right with the world. This ending, jumping from a 1985 reality to the present day reality with a lot of fantasy in between was a disaster. Did I miss something? What were they thinking? The ending made the whole thing from 1945 to now completely unknown, did he have a happy life, did he have a family? What kind of life had he led and what was he left with in the present time? If it was Cousin Roger playing the ivories, who was rather tardy in collecting his semi-crippled cuz from the train, maybe his life was full and fulfilling and didn't flash almost unexperienced before his eyes in 90 minutes that Tony's life appeared to have done. 5/10 for effort, nil points for the stupid ending.