‘Greatest Days’ Review
Stars: Aisling Bea, Alice Lowe, Matthew McNulty, Emma Amos, Lara McDonnell, Jayde Adams, Ziggy Heath, Marc Wootton, Eliza Dobson, Amaka Okafor, Carragon Guest, Barry O’Connor | Written by Tim Firth | Directed by Coky Giedroyc
With a career that began in 1990, survived a break-up, Robbie Williams’ solo success, and Jason Orange leaving, it’s safe to say that Take That have done rather well. Writer Tim Firth utilised the band’s music for a jukebox musical which took the Mamma Mia! approach, before its success led to Firth adapting the musical to a film directed by Coky Giedroyc.
The story flashes back to 1993, where five best friends are obsessed with a band called “The Boys” who are not Take That, despite having hits such as Relight My Fire, Pray, and Never Forget. These flashbacks are intercut around a main story taking place 25 years later, when the friends reunite after losing touch to take an Athens trip together and see The Boys in concert.
As the teens bond over their shared love for this band, the chart-topping hits are regularly used to encapsulate what emotions the characters are going through. Alongside conveying the joy these friends experience, it is also a coping mechanism through the grief and regret experienced throughout their lives. This should be where the fantastical musical sequences burst alive, yet they feel too half-hearted to inspire much of a response. A sequence where the reunited friends board their plane should be a marvellous flight of fancy, yet it instead has the grace of exhausted passengers awaiting a four-hour delayed flight.
None of this is the cast’s fault, as these terrific performers can only do so much with heavy-handed dialogue amidst the overly saccharine material. It all feels too engineered towards an expectation that audiences will sob over the bare minimum, despite the undercooked character arcs struggling to do much within a story that drags out a blatantly obvious revelation. Perhaps this feature will work for the Take That devotees, but this is not a film I want back for good.
*½ 1.5/5
Greatest Days is in cinemas now.
