Welcome to Dexter Fletcher week! I’ll be posting reviews on the two musical movies he directed. I was also going to post something on Topsy Turvy because he acted in that for a hot second, but it’s a story about the making of The Mikado and like… yeah. That’s gonna take some more time to dig into because this list features all kinds of movies with people who causally cosplay other races.
And I’m sorry, guys, this is going to be the most needlessly bitchy thing I’ll ever write. I’m going to try and be as measured as possible on this one because a lot of people think this movie is fun, and ultimately it’s completely harmless, but Jesus, for an hour an a half it’s a complete slog.
I’m not Scottish, and I don’t know anything about the Proclaimers other than their 500 miles song, and I hate that song. It’s kind of a meme in the US? Other than it being a musical, I am 1000% not the target demographic for this movie. In fact, I’m not sure anyone outside of Scotland is? The lengths I had to go through to watch this movie was insane. It wasn’t available on any streaming service in the US, I couldn’t rent it on Google or Amazon, and I couldn’t even buy the DVD because they’re not manufactured in a region that my DVD players support. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t pay for it since I wouldn’t have watched it again outside of having to write about it. ‘Cause I’m a yank who is hard of hearing, I was lucky I found a subtitled version of it online *somewhere*, in that space of the internet that is certain to have given me some sort of tracking virus.
Ally and Davy have returned to Scotland after being on active duty in Afghanistan. Their first stop on their welcome home tour is Davy’s family, since Ally is dating Davy’s sister Liz. Davy has mixed feelings about coming back unscathed while others in his regiment haven’t returned or were severely injured. His father, Rab, tries to reassure him he did the best he could out there.
Now that Ally and Davy are back, Liz decides to introduce her English friend Yvonne to her brother. Neither Davy or Yvonne are super keen on this idea, but after a few shots of tequila and bonding over shared trauma, they start dating.
Meanwhile, Rab and his wife Jean are getting ready for their 25th anniversary party. Liz and Yvonne take Jean dress shopping while she reminisces about a life less travelled, since she got married and never left Scotland. Liz takes this cautionary tale to heart and starts applying to overseas nursing programs in order to fly the coop.
Ally, on the other hand, takes this anniversary party as a cue to propose to Liz so they can start their 25 years together. She’s given him no indication she’s enthusiastic about the idea, but it doesn’t stop him from hyping up his future brother-in-law on the prospect.
The night of the party arrives, and whoops, Rab had an affair within the first year of their marriage and has a secret daughter. He tries to hide this information from Jean, except she finds a letter from the daughter in his coat pocket (because that’s a super safe place to hide that) while he’s singing about how much he loves her. She freaks out and storms off, Rab follows her, and Ally takes the opportunity to publicly propose to Liz, which ends disastrously.
Ally starts a fight with one dude because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut and heckles him for some reason? Davy comes to his rescue, which pisses Yvonne off, and the three girls storm off.
The next day, Liz confides in her family her employment application was accepted and she’s heading to Florida, and like girllllll, Florida’s sketch, stay in Scotland. Her and Ally break up because he’s a baby and doesn’t want her to sow her wild oats before settling down. He decides to join the army again because he doesn’t know what else to do with his life.
Davy and Yvonne make up because of reasons, and because Dexter Fletcher likes to film songs in front of windows.
Jean, on the other hand, wants to punish her husband for his transgression 25 years ago by telling him he can’t see his daughter anymore. Her coworkers support her in this decision in a weirdly overly-invested and cheery way? Rab responds by having a heart attack, which fixes everything.
Yvonne uses this crisis as another opportunity to pick a fight with Davy over a hypothetical situation and they break up, yet again. Thirty seconds later, they decide they’re in love and we all have to suffer through “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” because there’s no other song that would end this musical, let’s be honest.
You are never, ever going to sell me on a flash mob. It’s peak cringe. You’re obnoxiously forcing unwilling people who are just trying to live their goddamn lives to pay attention to you. AND WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE IN-STORY THEY CHOREOGRAPHED THEIR FIGHT AND RECONCILIATION. I mean, it’s meta, I’ll give them that, but no, nope, stop it, thanks, I hate it.
I was so bored during this movie I walked away, several times, to grab a drink or a snack and just let it play… I never missed anything. It was all still there when I got back. Just a bunch of people casually singing karaoke versions of Proclaimers songs. As someone who didn’t like the music, the story was not enough to carry me through.
I started watching interviews with The Proclaimers and Dexter Fletcher to get an idea of how this project came about. The Proclaimers didn’t sound like they cared much about musicals before theirs was made, and that’s totally fair, none of these songs were written with an overall narrative in mind. Additionally, Dexter Fletcher wasn’t super familiar with the Proclaimers before taking on the project, and had never seen the show. The creator of the musical, Stephen Greenhorn, came up with the idea while drunk listening to The Proclaimers, and like… yeah, you can tell. The movie does none of the work to convince us these characters are real people with their own motivations, and every bit of conflict exists to set up a way for a song to be shoehorned into the story. This movie is about an hour shorter than the stage show, so I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that things don’t feel as rushed there, but it’s pretty disorienting here.
I suppose it’s not a unique criticism for jukebox musicals, but when you’re forced to pull from one band’s catalogue, you have to take some creative gymnastics to make these unrelated songs have a cohesive narrative. It’s funny to say that on the heels of Rocketman, but we’ll get there…
Anyway, I’m a curmudgeon who strongly disliked the simply glorious feel-fabulous film of 2013. Good to know ye olde depression is still alive and well.