User Reviews

If you want a film where you can just forget what's going on outside the cinema then Greatest Days is one of those films. I wasn't sure what to expect when I went to see it but came out really enjoying it. It's a film about being an adult and catching up with old friends you had at school. Iit just happens to have the music of Take That in it. I'm guessing people might have been expecting a Bio Pic like Bo Rap or Elvis but this isn't that or Rocketman. It's just a nice film where you can sing or hum along with. The young cast are really good and actually shine right through it.

Aisling Bea Is brilliant in this and so is Jayde Adams.

I have seen some quite negative reviews of this which I think were harsh. However it wasn't brilliant but I did warm to it as it went along. The Boys are somewhat off putting in places but as long as you get it into your head that they're not actually supposed to be Take That you'll get into the swing of things. Nice to see Mr Poppy in something else besides nativity stuff!!

The grown ups match well with their younger versions and it's a decent enough storyline with a satisfying uplifting ending.

I think it suffered from a lack of funding to bring off bigger and better numbers. It's no Mamma Mia and I preferred Sunshine on Leith!!

PS watch out for the buskers on the train 😜

Really it's more like a 6.5 but the current IMDB score feels a bit mean. The story is quite straightforward- 40-something Rachel (Aisling Bea) wins tickets to a reunion concert of her favourite boyband. She wants to take her fellow fans- her school friends who she has not seen for 25 years. The film flicks between 1993, when the girls are 16, and the present-day (doesn't look like the screenplay was updated from the original musical, which places the film in 2018).

Some of the reviewers have got confused- the band is not meant to be Take That; we never find out the name of the band (they are just referred to as 'the boys'). The band themselves are actually very bland and you can't imagine any girl getting in a frenzy over them. This is a drawback in the early part of the film because we're listening to Take That songs being sung like a weak bit of karaoke. Later on in the film the characters get to sing some of their songs (the highlights being 'Back for Good', as the women duet with their younger selves, and a funeral version of 'A Million Love Songs').

The younger actors were particularly good and it will bring back happy nostalgic memories for women, losing their school friendships, but there are a few plot elements that just don't ring true:

• One of the members of the original friendship group is killed on the way back from the concert. Surely this would mean you avoid their music because it's associated with tragedy?

• Women do not lose contact for 25 years and suddenly revert to their childhood selves, reigniting the old passions. You get the feeling these girls would have eventually lost touch anyway.

It's obviously going for the Mamma Mia! Feel with the emphasis on friendships but the difference is that ABBA doesn't have a typical audience- they cross different generations- and everyone knows their songs, whereas Take That have a specific audience (women in their thirties and forties), and whilst they do have good songs, they don't have the same classic status.

I did overall enjoy the film's message about not completely burying your younger self- I feel like this was really the main theme rather than long lost friends reuniting.

Just spent an hour and a half sat watching the greatest days and what a lot of rubbish.

Couldn't follow the storyline as it jumped timelines going backwards and forwards, singing is terrible as none of them could sing.

I thought the movie was based on Take That and their songs, but how wrong was I. Its all about 5 fans, who adore them from teenagers to adults.

The trailer looked better. And the West End musical Never Forget, which are based on Take That songs is Soo much better, even though Take That had no input into it.

I wouldn't waste any time on this movie and watch Never Forget the musical instead.

I remember the talent show Let It Shine a few years ago, where Gary Barlow was searching for new talent to form a boyband for his Take That musical; back then it was called The Band, then it was retitled, and then it was turned into a movie, written by Tim Firth (Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots). Directed by Coky Giedroyc (Mel's sister). Basically, in 1993, in the northern small town of Clitheroe, Lancashire, a quintet of teenage schoolgirls: Rachel (Belfast's Lara McDonnell), Claire (Carragon Guest), Zoe (Nandi Sawyers-Hudson), Heather (Eliza Dobson), and Debbie (Jessie Mae Alonzo) worship pop boyband The Boys (Aaron Bryan, Dalvin Cory, Joshua Jung, Mervin Noronha, and Mark Samaras). Rachel in particular has many daydreams of her favourite boyband appearing and singing along with her to help her block out her unhappy home life. The group of friends have their dreams come true when they get the opportunity to see the band onstage at a concert. After making memories that last a lifetime, the girls gather at a place in the hills surrounded by rocks and make a promise that they will always be together. Twenty-five years later, the girls have all gone their separate ways. Rachel (Aisling Bea) works as an NHS children's ward night-time nurse who is always perky with her young patients, and she is in relationship with boyfriend Jeff (Nativity's Marc Wootton) who continuously proposes marriage. After entering a radio competition to win all-expenses-paid tickets to a concert in Athens, Greece where The Boys are reuniting. Rachel is shocked and delighted to be called and win. Rachel sees this as an opportunity to reunite with her friends who she has not seen for decades. After getting in touch with each of them and inviting them, Rachel is reunited with Claire (Jayde Adams), who is obese, Heather (Prevenge's Alice Lowe), a fashion designer, and Zoe (Amaka Okafor), an academic, at the airport, but Debbie is absent. Arriving in Athens, the friends enjoy the hotel and sights, but their antics get them into trouble. They are arrested on the night of the concert, and despite their best efforts to make it, they are too late for it. The friends end up having an argument and split up. Back in Britain, they return to their normal lives. It is revealed that they parted ways in the past following the death of Debbie, who was killed after a road accident. In the end, Rachel and Jeff are finally married, she reconciles with Claire, Heather and Zoe who attend the wedding. They later gather at the rocky place from their childhood, reminiscing about Debbie. After that, Rachel, Jeff, Rachel's friends, and many of the people of the town celebrate the wedding. Also starring Matthew McNulty as Stuart, Hannah James-Scott as Rachel's Mum, Lindsay Bennett-Thompson as Heather's Mum Irene, Ermar Alexander as Debbie's Dad, and The X Factor's Linda John-Pierre as Passing Nurse, with cameos from Take That (Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, and Howard Donald, also producing) as buskers on the train. Bea gives an endearing central performance as the leader of the girlhood pals, McDonnel as her younger counterpart is equally likeable, Adams is amusing as the woman formerly dreaming of Olympic glory, Lowe and Okafor are alright, and Wootton is okay. The Take That songs featured in the film are: "Pray", "Could It Be Magic", "Relight My Fire", "Shine", "Greatest Day", "Said It All", "The Flood", "A Million Love Songs", "Back for Good", "Patience", "Rule the World", and "Never Forget", (and there are small bits and instrumentals of "It Only Takes a Minute", "Babe", "The Garden", and "Everything Changes"). It does feel cheesy a fair amount of the time, the death of a member of the group is guessable even before it is seen in flashback, and the fallout scenes are patchy. However, it is feel-good entertainment, and I admit I was singing along with all the songs which are performed to a good standard with well-choreographed and edited colourful dance sequences, fans of the boyband will certainly have fun, a schmaltzy but nostalgic and reasonable jukebox musical comedy drama. Worth watching!