User Reviews

Brighton? Brighton Where?

Except for a passing shot or two of Brighton's pier and pavilion, there is very little evidence of Brighton on show. The whole movie is pretty much filmed in Saint Leonards-on-sea, with other scenes shot in neighbouring Hastings.

In the first scenes, friends Dinah (Marion Bailey) and Doreen (Lesley Sharp) head off to Brighton on a bus from London. The bus is seen pulling up at the Alpha Cafe outside St Leonards Warrior Square railway station. They sit on the promenade on St Leonards seafront, with Hastings Pier in the distance, and meet teddy-boys Derek (Larry Lamb) and Dave (Phil Davis). They are later filmed smoking cigarettes outside the White Rock Theatre in Hastings.

The film then moves forward 40 years, to 2005, where the two now married couples - Dinah and Derek, and Dave and Doreen - drive down from London for a seaside jaunt in Brighton. Dinah and Derek pull up outside their favourite old Brighton boozer (actually The Royal in St Leonards) then head off to sit on the deckchairs on the (Brighton) seafront - actually filmed near the Goat Ledge cafe on Lower Promenade, St Leonards.

The couples meet up and Dinah heads off to buy them burgers. She is seen wandering around Kings Road, St Leonards, frantically looking for a burger bar, with shots of the Dandelion Deli and Kings Fish Bar, St Leonards, in the background. Later, Derek kicks a man sitting on a deck chair. He is later accosted by the man's friends while walking down Bottle Alley, St Leonards.

With a couple of other plot twists thrown in, one that involves a scene at the Chapel to the Former Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, in Magdalen Road, St Leonards, they all return to London (or maybe just somewhere that looks like London) with a story to tell.

Director Stephen Cookson said they decided to shoot the movie in Hastings and St Leonards because "Brighton is a bit too modern now" - Sounds more like "Brighton is a bit too expensive to film in now"

And if anyone is wondering.... I live in St Leonards.

I'm giving it a 7 purely because it's an example of how things change, some for the better, some for the worse, the film features 4 old friends who met in Brighton when they were young and ended up marrying each other hoping that nothing had changed when they re-visit as old people, the best elements in this are the foul language bickering between the main cast and the story of one meeting a lady her dad saved when she was a little girl herself, her dad dies saving the girl but because he didn't come back she thought he'd abandoned her, one thing it isn't is a jolly movie although it is comical in itself but I'd expect a mature audience will get more from it than a young one as they can relate to the content where young ppl will have no reference point having not experienced anything other than what they've seen so far, so if you're over 40 I think you will up mark it and under you'll be bored watching it as you won't be able to relate to it, overall it's a movie that was worth watching but could be graded anywhere between 1 & 10 depending on whose viewing it, Larry & Phil work it well between them.

SPOILERS

It's good to watch a play acted out so well and presented as a film. A change from the CGI and action that spellbinds you with smoke and mirrors. This is about how the world doesn't care about how you feel - its going to keep on moving. Forward backwards or sideways, but it's not stopping for you me or anyone.

The characters are immensely likeable at times and to see 2 elderly couples, who have spent a lifetime together - decades of good times and bad times - indicates true love and respect.

And whilst you're experiencing a sense of how that love feels, you're brought back into the room with a rascist and homophobic tirade that shocks your very core. And then spend the rest of the film being bounced from bigotry to bliss.

When the play was written in 1994 the protanganists were already cockney geezer throw backs. 40 years of living in London and it seems that they had spent the whole time avoiding any social integration. Almost as though their world was as cut off from civilisation as an Amazonian tribesmen. So to then produce this over 25 years later is almost as though they had spent that time on the moon. The 50's dress code seems ironic - almost fancy dress, but then I remembered that their car was an old 1950s classic. They really have struggled to move forward in time, from fashion to food to feelings.

The really easy thing to do here is look at the characters and just despise them. We've gone far past the point when views like theirs go unchallenged, practically moving to a time when they would be stubbed in the street.

A lot of reviews centre of the negative aspects of the main characters' 'archaic' attitudes, beliefs, actions and language. Do they display attitudes of narrow-mindedness? Yes. Sexism? Yes. Racism? Yes. Misogyny? Yes. Homophobia? Yes. Sizeism? Yep. It's all in here folks, you won't be disappointed! But if you fail to drop into the world of these older generation 'East Enders' due to perceptions of the use of 'isms' in modern day drama, then you're missing an opportunity to peek into the world of people who did and still do exist. Not all of the 4 main characters are 'stuck in the nasty past'. Doreen (Lesley Sharp) shows that she's been willing to break free from the restrictive social structure that she and her husband/friends were brought up in. She indicates that people can and do change their perceptions and attitudes, despite their upbringing. The assumption is that her life experiences have subtly moved her in a different direction. And the film's events also show that through exposure, interaction and willingness, people can change their attitudes at any stage in life. And surely that's a good thing? At the end, we hope that these people aren't monstrous dinosaurs beyond redemption. Perhaps their weekend in Brighton gave them more than cold burgers, achy ankles and a fractured pinky finger?

Sometimes, just sometimes, it's a good thing not to see a piece of drama through the lens of tropes, micro-aggressions, 'isms' etc and simply go along with the flow. I did and I had a good laugh, not just at the absurdity of the attitudes displayed, but at the truly amazing acting and line delivery. These actors aren't idiots. They didn't do this in order to simply earn a few quid. They understood the main message, and the nuances underpinning the writing. They got it. I hope that you do to.

I only watched this because I was born and bred in Brighton (1966). What a shame it wasn't actually filmed in Brighton! They did manage a few quick stock photos of the Pavilion and the bandstand but goodness knows where it was. I'm thinking maybe Hastings and part of it looked like they'd shoved some beach huts in a car park.

Anyway I did watch it all, I do like a bit of cockney rhyming slang as it seems to be dying out which is a shame. Some of it was quite funny and some of it was quite sad. What it wasn't was politically correct but the permanently offended brigade won't realise that they whole point was that although it put the characters in a bad light they genuinely didn't know they were being awful. The flashbacks showed that they had faced their own challenges which made them the way they were. A lot of it was fear and bravado.

This has to qualify as one of the worst films I have ever endured. The cast must have been desperate for a pay cheque late in their careers to agree to appearing in such a horrible movie. Two obnoxious geezers from the East End of London - racist, homophobic and misogynist - decide to take their wives to Brighton to rediscover their youth (only to find the world has moved on and it's now the 21st century). The plot was feeble - gay guy beaten up earlier turns out to be a doctor who is called upon to treat one of his attackers. Black woman turns out to have been saved from drowning by the father of one of the racist's wives. Attractive young hitch-hiker turns out to be a lesbian after being offered a lift back to London by the three homophobes. And so they all learnt a life lesson and presumably changed their ways. . . Utter drivel.