UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

James Today's generation gap is huge, parents find coping with with the organised chaos that is modern life an almost insuperable problem, and yet somewhere down the line kids need their parents - and hugely also their grandparents, and of course both parties can benefit if for once we just drop the stupid, profane and mostly meaningless burdens of everyday life and think about what really matters. Communing a bit with nature might do that, and from the off we know that "What we did on our holiday" is going to be selling the inspiringly gorgeous Scottish Highlands and Islands to us - including the midges (whose presence the film is big enough to admit to). In general, this offering both written and directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin dwells a lot on peoples' lying (for a vareity of reasons), yet is supremely, at times touchingly, at times even brutally, honest in its approach. Its integrity shines through. To make this work, the makers needed two sets of messed up parents to begin with (and this job is very well done by David Tennant + Rosamund Pike, as well as Ben Miller (the best thing he's done I believe) + Amelia Bullmore. Here we have two brothers markedly different from one another plus their wives. On paper, the Miller character Gavin is more successful than that played by Tennant, but he has the small difficulty of actually explaining what he even does! Basically, he's a "short seller" (whatever that is), and his young nephews and nieces make the kind of innocently witty remarks on that score that you might expect - to fine good comic effect! Exactly what brother Doug does is not clear either, but both of their marriages have some issues. But the stars of this show are grandparent and kids, and here there is nothing less than dream-fulfilment, as those who have long imagined how great a slightly toned-down but still pithy Billy Connolly might prove to be get their rewards. Poor old grandad is on the way out due to cancer and he is now (on the occasion of his 75th birthday party) ready, even desperate, to communicate some of his real, fundamental thoughts about the world. He feels he's not going to do very well with his sons and daughters-in-law, but wonders if he might reach them through the kids, at the same time as reaching the kids. Ultimately, he achieves more than he bargains for, when actually dying on the beach while in those kids' company; and he thus gives rise to the film's crescendo ending (on which score I'll avoid all spoilers).Many of the lines Connolly gets to utter are just superb, and the way he puts them across likewise. It's a treat.However, as Connolly interacts magnificently with Emilia Jones as Lottie, Bobby Smalldridge as Mickey and Harriet Turnbull as the youngest Jess, even he is at the same time being upstaged by them. These kids are just splendidly talented, appealing, and extremely, extremely funny. What is more, they often convey huge meaning in what they say and do, as kids invariably will. There is total, disarming authenticity here.Lottie - being the oldest - is most affected by her parents' marital problems, and has become rather withdrawn and anxious. Seeing her transform with the events of the film is a moving and at times powerful joy to watch. More depth and reality is conveyed by Emilia Jones's performance than in many, many previous films we've seen.Indeed, comedy laugh-out-loud this may be, but we take a great deal of value and meaning from this piece if we focus in on it (and also if we perservere through a perhaps slightly unpromising-looking first few minutes).Let's face it, a family get-together in a big house in the remote and beautiful wilds of Scotland is a concept that has a lot going for it from the outset, but the gem of giving equal weight to three generations of the family (with actors truly capable of pushing that idea through), of allowing the lines to flow with such a mix of wit and wisdom, of achieving the perfect mix of physical and verbal comedy, and of pursuing a plot-line of typically British eccentricity, is a really great achievement that should not be underestimated.At moments, "What we did on our holiday" risks straying towards the syrupy or naive, but it mostly, mainly stays on the right side of the line. That'as deft work by the makers. The film also very wisely plays only slightly with the English-Scottish stuff, remaining good-humoured and avoiding easy laughs based around divisiveness in favour of meaningful content that Brits from Land's End to John O'Groats can readily identify with. And they certainly should do so, as the rewards are very considerable. I expected little here and got a very great deal (appropriately enough on Christmas Day). I believe many, many others will find the same as I did.

mekjd The old saw is that families come together in crises, but we all know there is an equal chance that they will come apart. Rarely is it mentioned that both can occur, as is true in this gem of a movie. Even more rare is the notion of a joyous death, a death occurring in the middle of one's most cherished pursuits, spending time with grandchildren. More rare still (if not unprecedented) is that death can be celebrated with creativity and connection coming from children, who are ordinarily shielded from its realities, but who can not only rise to the occasion but, with their own mythologies, transcend it.It does not hurt that the adult cast is stellar nor does it hurt that the countryside is immeasurably beautiful nor that the child performers are the most adept wise fools and truth tellers to be seen in decades.I did not intend to write about this movie. I wanted to keep it as a secret for myself, to watch as the spirit might insist. Yet when I saw the anemic professional reviews, I felt compelled to speak up. So, if nothing else, the less than resounding applause from the professional front has shaken me loose from my selfishness and forced me to declare that all movie watchers everywhere would likely find something of delight in this film: see it!

Ross Care What We Did On Our Holiday is one of those "dysfunctional" family films, the positive ending of which can be spotted in the first half hour. The film, by a pair of Brit sitcom writer/directors, has garnered some positive reviews and I'm a fan of David Tennant - I just saw him in Don Juan in Soho when I was in London - but I found most of the characters here just irritating, especially the trio of precocious and potentially neurotic kids who never seem to have heard the word "no."The plot does indeed chronicle the London family's Scotland holiday to visit the husband's brother and father. A running gag is the attempt to keep the couple's upcoming divorce hush-hush. But of course the kids are not good at keeping secrets of any kind, or at keeping their mouths shut at all.Additional complications involve the feisty, free spirited grandfather who is in the last stages of cancer. Then, as one of the reviews noted, "it gets weird." Part of the weirdness arises from the son's obsession with Vikings and from his watching the historical epic, The Vikings, on TV. (It might be noted that this film raised the bar for graphic violence in mainstream films in 1958. There is even an in-joke when a bit from the musical score, the Viking horn call, is quoted).Finally the kids come up with an unusual way to deal with the grandfather's death, a solution which one would think might have serious legal consequences (which are briefly raised but finally just dismissed). But certainly the groundwork for years of therapy and analysis has been laid, issues which are blithely ignored in the final cheery conclusion set to feel-good blue grass music.A sequel dealing with the characters years down the line might prove more interesting than this weird-ed-out Holiday.

Spikeopath What We Did on Our Holiday is written and directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin. It stars Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly, Ben Miller, Amelia Bullmore, Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge, Harriet Turnbull and Celia Imrie. Music is by Alex Heffes and cinematography by Martin Hawkins."The truth is, every human being on this planet is ridiculous in their own way. So we shouldn't judge, we shouldn't fight, because in the end... in the end, none of it matters. None of the stuff"Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin spin off from their hugely popular sit-com, Outnumbered, to produce this funny, philosophical and moving picture. Tennant and Pike play parents of three young children, they are pending a divorce, but with Doug's (Tennant) father, Gordie (Connolly), dying of cancer, the family head to Scotland for what will surely be his last birthday party. Hoping to put on a united front so as to not upset Gordie any further, nobody could envisage what was to happen next...It's a film that some no doubt find easy to kick, such is the uncomplicated structure used, and the formula of messaging that drives it forward. Yet sometimes uncomplicated is all you need, and in this day and age of mega-buck blockbusters and soulless frat type comedies grasping at sex for laughs, this is a film of refreshing qualities. It's superbly performed by what is a top notch group of adult British actors, who in turn are supplemented by three child actors so natural and engaging it makes you wonder if acting school is really needed?It's obviously a piece that will resonate more with those who have been touched/stung by the thematics at work, while the comedy ticking away - with some truly great lines uttered - could seem a bit off kilter for the unprepared, but hopefully more will watch it, laugh and cry and ultimately realise that life really is too short for, well, you get the picture I'm sure. 8/10