Here's one of my favorite English films I'd like to see make it to a wider audience someday
Michael Sheen here plays a character almost unrecognizable from his Underworld Vampire persona he would play just a couple movies later. He's just a poor sap who's wife leaves him for his Darts captain, and his road trip to go get her - well, a road trip on a 50cc moped.
It's been called an unusual sort of Road Trip movie, and I guess it is that - but I guess for me the character's realization that his life isn't what he wants it to be anymore, and his willingness to walk away from his repentant wife is what hit me hard. As a young man, I always understood "Seize The Day" mentality of the Dead Poets Society - there was a part of me that was influenced by the Romantics like Byron, Hemingway, and so forth.
I'm getting older now, though - and as things start to slip, I think about Ulysses, by Tennyson - I think about how little I will leave behind and how much of a struggle it's been, and I think about getting on a moped in Vietnam, or India, or some place where the fear of being killed hasn't kicked in yet - I think about how I used to walk freely in the woods behind my house and how now I walk in fear of things like bears
it's a movie about transformation and I want one more myself - not quite sure yet how to get it
In any case, I bought this film for all things, the Kate Rusby soundtrack and cameo - she was my favoring English Folk Singer about 20 years ago - so of course I had to buy it.
I watched it tonight and I cried a bit - I find myself rewatching things I liked 15 years ago trying to get something back - might be time to go thru a few more.
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