His bus-travel gradually attracts social media attention from curious onlookers, so when he disembarks from “the last bus” to complete his journey, he is greeted by a crowd of supportive well-wishers. Perhaps inspired by real-life viral pensioner Captain Tom Moore, fictional stretcher-bearer Tom Harper gets his own hashtag. Just as the picture-book collection of scenic shots captures the image of Britain, these scenes show a cross-section of British people on public transport, and help elucidate Tom’s own kind-hearted nature. None of them are especially memorable, but then again encounters on buses rarely are, and director Gillies MacKinnon does opt for naturalism. It’s not quite Speed.Īlong the way Tom has a series of encounters with other bus passengers, including sticking up for a Muslim woman who is getting abused for wearing a burqa, engaging with a bystander in a rendition of a personally significant carol, and having a brush with a desperate pauper who steals his suitcase. Lots of looking out of a bus window as Scottish mountains give way to North West high streets give way to Somerset fields give way to the Atlantic Ocean. Combined with some sedate pacing, the film often scans as a dull travelogue. However, this strength comes with a catch. Nick Lloyd Webber’s musical cues burnish a plethora of arrestingly photographed British landscapes, particularly those of the Highlands. These frequently solitary moments are echoed by the accompaniment of solitary string notes, occasionally segued with samples of British folk. Deeply traumatised, Mary just wants to get as far away as possible, hence how the couple came to live their lives in John O’ Groats. We see his budding romance with Mary, and that while resident in Land’s End, their child died as an infant. They gradually do so in unchronological flashbacks-an elaborate but unburdensome structural device-triggered by Tom’s pilgrimage. The narrative keeps its cards close to its chest, though much of the emotional context can be inferred before the reveals come. Characterful, humble, and pained, his fragile presence and laboured mannerisms illustrate Tom’s struggle against infirmity, which in turn defines the character’s struggle to reach a telos. The camera is rarely off Spall, who acts 20-years beyond his own 64 for the role.
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