Last Orders (film)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the 2001 film. For other films, see Last Order (disambiguation).

Last Orders
Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International[1]
)
Release dates
  • 10 September 2001 (2001-09-10) (Toronto)
  • 7 December 2001 (2001-12-07) (US)
  • 11 January 2002 (2002-01-11) (UK)
Running time
106 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
Germany
LanguageEnglish
Box office$6.8 million

Last Orders is a 2001

drama film written and directed by Fred Schepisi. The screenplay is based on the 1996 Booker Prize-winning novel Last Orders by Graham Swift
.

Plot

The title refers to a pub

last call and the final wishes of a dying man, in this instance Jack Dodds (Michael Caine), a south London butcher who greatly influenced four men over the course of his flawed but decent life. The quartet gathers to scatter Jack's ashes in Margate
, where he had hoped to retire to a small seaside cottage with his wife Amy (Helen Mirren), a dream that was never fulfilled.

The four are: professional

luxury cars, whose relationship with his father never quite recovered when, as a young boy, he learned his real family perished in a wartime bombing and Jack and Amy took in the orphaned
infant and raised him as their own.

As the quartet journeys from

pubs
, they reminisce about their friend.

Amy is on a journey of her own to visit their daughter, June (Laura Morelli), who has

learning difficulties and was institutionalized
shortly after her birth fifty years earlier. Over the years Jack barely acknowledged her existence but Amy faithfully visited her weekly, even though June had no idea of who she was or why she visited.

Through frequent flashbacks that stretch across six decades, the stories of the events that brought these people to this point in their lives slowly unfold, ultimately revealing the importance of friendship and love.

Principal cast

Production

According to the film's official website, producer Elisabeth Robinson and screenwriter/director Fred Schepisi were preparing a feature film about Don Quixote in 1997 when she brought Graham Swift's novel to his attention. The two acquired the film rights to the book, and Schepisi begin to work on his adaptation, completing the first draft of the script by February 1998. Schepisi met potential cast members and forged commitments with Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, and Ray Winstone.

Chatham, Margate, and Rochester.[3] Interiors were shot at the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire
.

Release

The film premiered at the

London Film Festival
before opening in the US on 7 December 2001. The film went into theatrical release in the UK on 11 January 2002.

The film grossed $2,329,631 in the US and $4,544,261 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $6,873,892.[4]

Critical reception

On

weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[6]

A.O. Scott of

David Hare (Plenty) and John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation). Last Orders, though quite different in theme and structure, shares with these films a quiet, amused wonder at the complexities of human character, and a reluctance to shoehorn them into narrative conventions or deduce obvious morals."[7]

Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "an enervated, overly muted drama that should have been a lot livelier, considering the terrific cast" and added, "The actors do their best, particularly the impeccable Mirren, but Schepisi draws a shroud of chaste dullness over their scenes and lays on an energy-sapping score . . . The action moves constantly between present and past, which isn't a bad narrative scheme, but when it's done so frequently and deliberately, we feel as if we're looking over Schepisi's shoulder as he diagrams the whole story for us."[8]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "a funny and touching film" and "a bawdy delight" and commented, "The acting is of the highest order, but the magnificent Mirren . . . is the film's glory and its grieving heart."[9]

Philip French of The Observer called the film "a moving study of the pleasures and obligations of friendship, and of facing up to a death and going on" and added, "Schepisi always handles actors sympathetically and here he has a perfect cast, most of whom can draw on their own and their parents' experiences. Without a touch of patronisation, they sink into their characters and never attempt to steal scenes from each other."[10] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said, "I sometimes felt more than a little coerced by the emotion being deployed" but added, "[C]lassy is indubitably what this film is - as well as intelligent, high-minded, and touching."[11]

Neil Smith of the BBC said "The plot may be on the mawkish side, but that doesn't stop Fred Schepisi's adaptation . . . being a gentle, affecting mix of road movie and soap opera. It helps that the Australian director has assembled a crack cast . . . Brian Tufano's handsome widescreen photography and Paul Grabowsky's excellent music turn this fairly parochial melodrama into something really rather special."[12]

Time Out New York described it as "Sober, even elegiac in tone, and elegantly shot" and added, " At the film's heart is an attempt to suggest the extraordinary nature of ordinary people, and if it fails to achieve profundity, it still makes for one of the most rewarding and authentic depictions of/tributes to the Cockney way of life in recent years."[13]

Awards and nominations

The film won the

London Film Critics Circle Award for Best British Supporting Actress. Fred Schepisi was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
and the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

References

  1. ^
    Lumiere
    . Retrieved 14 April 2021.
  2. ^ Goodridge, Mike (30 October 2001). "Sony Pictures Classics in multi-territory deals". Screen International. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
  3. ^ Kent Film Office. "Kent Film Office Last Orders Film Focus".
  4. ^ "Last Orders". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  5. ^ "Last Orders". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
  6. Fandom, Inc.
    Retrieved 2 July 2023.
  7. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  8. ^ Guthmann, Mick LaSalle, Edward (1 March 2002). "FILM CLIPS / Also opening today". SFGATE. Retrieved 20 October 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ "Last Orders : Review : Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. 16 June 2008. Archived from the original on 16 June 2008. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  10. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  11. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  12. ^ "BBC - Films - review - Last Orders". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  13. ^ Time Out New York review

External links

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