Director: Dustin Hoffman
Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins
Running Time: 98 minutes
Synopsis: In England's financially struggling Beecham House for retired musicians, the residents include retired opera singers Reg (Tom Courtenay), Wilf (Billy Connolly), and Cissy (Pauline Collins), as well as musical director Cedric (Michael Gambon). Preparations for the upcoming annual pageant are disrupted by the arrival of Jean Horton (Maggie Smith), a retired diva and Reg's ex-wife. She has vowed to never sing again, but Reg, Wilf, and Cissy set out to convince her otherwise.
What Works Well: The picturesque rural setting provides postcard-quality backdrops to this adaptation of writer Ronald Harwood's play, and the soundtrack of classical music snippets enhances the sense of staid sophistication. The lead performances are predictably elegant, Billy Connelly enjoys delivering a stream of unfiltered innuendos, and the extras animating Beecham House include actual retired British musicians.
What Does Not Work As Well: No amount of visual and aural beauty can hide the wafer-thin content. The characters reside at the skimpy sketch level, their late-in-life afflictions treated purely for laughs, and the resolutions of the big dilemmas (will Reg and Jean reconcile? will she sing again?) are oh-so-predictable. In reaching for a respectable running time, director Dustin Hoffman resorts to plenty of padding.
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