Moon Film Review: Stan and Ollie


Now, Your Cultural Correspondent (Film) has a confession to make. Despite having an uncle who is one of their biggest fans, and because of that having a childhood in which they loomed large, Your Cultural Correspondent (Film) is not a fan of Laurel and Hardy. Indeed, we could sit through an entire film of theirs and not laugh once, finding them not at all funny.

So it proved again when we went to see 'Stan and Ollie'. We did not laugh at their 'onstage' antics once, although the antics of their sparring wives did make us laugh. While not amusing us then, the film did affect us. For it was superb and in parts very moving. The acting of the five main protagonists (Mr John C Reilly as Oliver Hardy, Miss Shirley Henderson as Lucille Hardy, Mr Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel, Miss Nina Arianda as Ida Kitaeva Laurel and an excellent Rufus Jones as a spiv-like, chancing Bernard Delfont) was faultless, the script equally so, and the central message of the film relevant to ones country today: what do you do when you're past your prime?

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