What Is It? A Long Way Down – the new film based on the Nick Hornby novel of the same name.
Oh God, is this another Hugh Grant thing? No sir. This one’s got Pierce Brosnan in it as the twinkly-eyed old dude. It does have Toni Collette in though. And she’s a bit similar to her oddball character in About A Boy.
No sign of Nicholas Hoult though? Sadly not. Which is a shame. There is Aaron Paul though.
The Breaking Bad dude? Yep. He’s a movie star now. Didn’t you see Need For Speed?
Erm no. Were we meant to? Not really. Apparently it’s rubbish.
Anyways – what’s this film about? Ok yep, sorry slight tangent. It’s about four strangers that meet up on a rooftop which they all happen to be about to throw themselves off of.
Shit, why? Because of various things. For starters Pierce Brosnan’s a middle-aged celebrity who’s in a lot of hot water for sleeping with a 15-year-old girl. (‘She said she was 25!’). Anyways – they all make a pact with each other not to kill themselves before Valentine’s Day. Which is nice.
And then what happens? And then they form a weird dysfunctional group thing. They go on a daytime TV show, they go on holiday together, they quite predictably hit a few more bumps in the road.
What are people saying about it? Erm, the media’s not been kind. For instance, Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian has called it a, ‘Non-musical Mamma Mia! for self-harmers; a wince inducing parade of misjudgements and false notes.’ Ouch.
What are we saying? It’s not the greatest film you’ll ever see, and the trivialisation of suicide makes the whole thing feel a little bit cheap. But Pierce Brosnan as the disgraced celebrity is totally brilliant, as is Toni Collette as the mum struggling to deal with her disabled son. The bit where Rosamund Pike masquerades as a daytime TV presenter even verges on hilarious.
See it if: You’re desparate to go to the movies this week, but think Labor Day looks a bit heavy. This is definitely not heavy.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.