Military Wives
MILITARY WIVES - LIONSGATEMilitary Wives is the definition of a simplistic stoic British film, made solely and purely for British audiences. Boasting little in the vein of the more visually impressive or thematically potent likes of Under the Skin, I, Daniel Blake or even Rocketman, Military Wives is undoubtedly the type of British film that a grandparent will most likely consider to be Oscar-worthy.
It is not to say the film is bad, per se, as it does have a few strong points in the lead performances from Kristen Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan as Kate and Lisa, respectively. A duo in despair that turn to the only thing that can brighten any sane person up when they feel down: music and, more importantly, expressing their emotions through lyricism and performing.
Scott Thomas and Horgan both carry this film on their shoulders and are subsequently able to provide much needed comedic levity to clash with the attempts of conjuring up a no-pun-intended emotional ballad along with some of the unknown supporting cast and a layer of gravity and authenticism to the feature. Military Wives does, however, suffer a lot from emotional manipulation in multiple scenes and not every attempt succeeds the landing that screenwriters Rachel Tunnard and Rosanne Flynn were surely banking on. A good chunk of the comedic beats written do not hit the sense of quintessential British comedy personified.
Knowing that the Military Wives choir are a real group enhances the enjoyment level of the film. It is interesting to see the early development of the group and how far they have come since their inception; the film certainly gains a little respect on that front, as it honours their remarkable and unlikely story to media stardom. Nevertheless, due to the film constricted to a real-life plot and genre conventions, little surprises in the long run.
With a decent enough combination of strong performances and a crowd-pleasing story, the plain and simple Military Wives falls into the category of being just about fine, nothing more and nothing less.
MILITARY WIVES is released March 6th 2020
