Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for occasional sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.20
Fans of droll and quirk will love this slice of British whimsy; others are apt to find it much too precious and stylized.
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| Peter (Sam Riley, left) and his father Alan (Bill Nighy) "forgot" how to connect years ago; they can't even bond over a game of Scrabble ... even though they're likely to play at any moment, and in any setting. |
Director Carl Hunter and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce clearly studied at the altar of Wes Anderson; Sometimes Always Never — debuting on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms — has the mildly peculiar atmosphere and character eccentricity of (for example) Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.
At the same time, Hunter and Boyce uncork a deeply — at times painfully — intimate story about grief, and the necessity of finding a way to move beyond tragedy.
We meet Alan (Bill Nighy) as he solemnly waits on a deserted Merseyside beach; he has arranged to meet his adult son, Peter (Sam Riley), for a day trip with a potentially fateful conclusion. Their relationship is wary and prickly. We sense that Peter long ago gave up trying to communicate meaningfully with his father, and for good reason; Alan’s cryptic comments and responses always seem three sentences behind, and in some entirely different conversation.
It gradually becomes clear that they’ve long been trying to find Alan’s other son, Michael — Peter’s older brother — who walked out of the house years ago, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. They’re currently chasing down a faint lead: something one or both of them must’ve done many, many times before.
It proves fruitless … although, during their overnight stop at a twee B&B, they meet Margaret (Jenny Agutter) and Arthur (Tim McInnerny), a couple navigating their own, similar grief.
Back at home in Lancashire, Alan — a professional tailor who earned a comfortable living, and is the sole occupant of a well-appointed home — finds that he cannot stand to be alone. He therefore becomes an unannounced guest in Peter’s home, where he’s accepted graciously by the latter’s warm and cheerful wife, Sue (Alice Lowe). She seems to understand and accept her father-in-law’s aloofness and affectations in a way that Peter cannot.
On the other hand, Peter and Sue have given up trying to fathom their teenage son, Jack (Louis Healy), forever buried in front of his computer screen, playing an endless array of first-person shooter games. Jack gives up the bottom berth of his bunk bed, in order to accommodate Alan; what feels like an imposition blossoms into a connection bridged initially by their shared interest in games.
As it happens, Alan is wholly, totally obsessed with Scrabble. He constantly plays online opponents on his phone, and we watched him chat Margaret and Arthur into a game, back at the B&B; he does the same with Sue and Jack, much to Peter’s obvious chagrin and discomfort. (We wonder why. We’ll soon find out.)
Alan is no mere novice; he obviously swallowed several dictionaries — and at least one thesaurus — somewhere along the way.
Hunter and Boyce have fun with this fixation; the on-screen action occasionally is interrupted by flowery inserts of Scrabble-style words — complete with definitions — that are appropriate to what just happened, or is about to occur. Many of these characters enjoy playing with words (even if, in Alan’s case, at woefully inappropriate moments).
As I said, whimsical. But also shrewdly observed.
The emerging metaphor, oft-referenced as we move into the second and third acts, concerns the Prodigal Son: particularly in terms of how his behavior affects the younger son left behind. The point is amplified by Alan’s tendency, back when both boys were younger, to purchase bootlegs and knock-offs; the boys therefore wound up with second-best toys, second-best tennis shoes, and so forth.
Even the family Scrabble game was a cheap copy dubbed Scrobble, with circular, flimsy cardboard letter tiles that would bend when one used them.
To what degree, then, has Alan’s single-minded search for Michael impacted his relationship with Peter? And can the latter be blamed for assuming that he’ll never be better than second-best? Who, really, is the “missing” son?
The role of Alan could have been written for Nighy, who’s note-perfect in every scene. Alan’s mildly arch tranquility would be insufferable in lesser hands, but somehow Nighy manages to remain sympathetic, and even amusing at times. We laugh out loud at unexpected moments, despite ourselves, even as on-screen characters endure obvious grief.
Riley holds his own; Peter’s quiet anguish is palpable at times, and his efforts to really, truly reach his father are heartbreaking. Lowe makes it clear that Sue is the smart one here; she bides her time, somehow knowing — despite the years that the strained Alan/Peter circumstances must have lasted — that things will work out. Eventually. Maybe.
I love the evolving dynamic between Alan and Jack, and the subtlety with which Hunter and Boyce allow it to develop. Healy, initially concealed within a hoodie, is like a flower that stubbornly refuses to bloom; even his efforts to catch the attention of a cute girl at their daily bus stop — Ella-Grace Gregoire, radiant as Rachel — are pathetically (hilariously) half-hearted.
Close proximity can’t help making Jack curious about his rather odd grandfather; curiosity leads to interest, which … ah, but that would be telling.
All this character interplay unfolds against a heavily stylized tapestry carefully orchestrated by production designer Tim Dickel and cinematographer Richard Stoddard. (Hunter wanted a look that evoked surrealistic Czech and Russian filmmakers.) Colors are overly vibrant, at time startlingly so; landscapes are either sweeping and naturalistic, or oddly “cramped,” as if two-dimensional.
Alan and Peter’s initial car journey is rather startling, taking place via old-school back-projection: an impression of moving forward, when (as we later realize) they really aren’t. House interiors — Alan’s home, Peter and Sue’s home, the B&B — feel dated, as if time literally stopped the day that Michael disappeared.
Without question, many viewers will find all these affectations excessive, the story too “flimsy” to support so much eccentricity. But I’ve always loved slow-build character studies, and gentle British absurdity is its own reward.
Give it a try.
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