ORDINARY LOVE (2019) FILM REVIEW

****

12A, 92 Mins

Lesley Manville is outstanding, but this moving cancer story relies every bit as much on Liam Neeson's heartfelt performance.

Movies about cancer (or any potentially terminal illness for that matter) often suffer from a rather misjudged dose of mawkishness. Think 'Fault in Our Stars' (2014) if you want an example of how not to sensitively treat the disease on screen - a shameless exercise in emotional manipulation that utterly disregarded the human toll of cancer in favour of dirgy, 'Twilight'-lite lovey dubby nonsense.

From its posters, 'Ordinary Love' (2019) which follows a retired  couple coping with the fallout of a breast cancer diagnosis looks worryingly like a version of that film for the 40-55 year old market. How touching therefore that it should serve up earthy grit in the place of saccharine sweetness.

Directed by Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn ('Good Vibrations' (2013)) and scripted by Northern Irish playwright Owen McCafferty, this wonderful film isn't embedded with false pretences about love surviving against disease. It makes sure to chronicle the soul-destroying impact Cancer has not only on its victims, but all family and friends associated with them. The result is an emotionally draining portrait of relationship self-destruction presented by two of the finest actors working today.

Much of the critical plaudits have been levelled towards Lesley Manville who is outstanding as the chemo-ridden Joan and deserves the highest awards going. However, the film wouldn't be whole without the heartfelt presence of Liam Neeson. He's brilliant as unexpectedly fragile husband Tom in a turn that strips him of the gruff grizzledness of his post-2000s renaissance as a meatheaded action hero and allows him to flex a "sensitive" side not seen since 'Kinsey' (2004).

The two stars have some of the most naturalistic chemistry I've seen in years. Not since Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone bonded like Twitter-gen Romeos and Juliets over a window have a duo of people felt so sublimely screen-suited to each other and yet the film almost cruelly strives to seperate them at every opportunity.

Your heart will split into splinters during a lengthy bed-bound argument where Neeson accuses his wife of "selfishness". It's well-earned heartbreak, though, as opposed to repetitive tugs at the heart-strings with such a scene speaking often unvoiced volumes for partners forced to bear the brunt of being a carer to their partner's illness.

If there's any downside to this film's immediate lack of sentimentality, its that it can occasionally render it televisual. There's a sparsity of cinematic flourish apparent in the dreary, Orwellian Belfast tower blocks and tightly compact hospital wards that encompass a substantial bulk of the running time. One wonders whether the odd Hollywood "weepie" moment might've lent a bit of accessibility to the grim, gruelling miserablism.

Ironically, however, the film's "televisual" quality turns out to be less a criticism of its lack of big screen prowess, but rather an indictment of its realism. Where cinema can tend towards sweeping liberties for the sake of crowdpleasing appeal, the small screen medium thrives in the by-the-book procedures and accuracy its long-form format can afford it. Within just over an hour and a half, the film-makers have provided a suitably unforgiving and melancholy look at human fragility that refuses to be bogged down by audience demands for a happy ending.

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