Greatest Days
Coky Giedroyc’s feel-good, box-ticking jukebox musical celebrates friendship as much as it venerates the hits of Take That.
(Image courtesy of Elysian Film Group)
Buoyed by the back catalogue of Take That, Greatest Days is a jukebox musical that wants to cram all of life into its running time. Snatching the baton from Mamma Mia! and heading off to Greece it, too, is based on a stage show (The Band) and fits in the hits where it can. But whereas the 2008 film (Mamma Mia!) made the songs integral to the drama, the track-listing here is delivered by an imaginary boyband known mysteriously as “the boys”, who appear out of nowhere at any given time.
The central character is Rachel O’Flynn, engagingly embodied by Aisling Bea in her first film lead, a paediatric nurse working at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Bea is an innately warm, funny and appealing figure, so when the film flips back to 1993 in Clitheroe, Lancashire, her presence is instantly missed. However, her 16-year-old doppelgänger is well-played by Lara McDonnell, who’s joined by her four inseparable besties Zoe (Nandi Sawyers-Hudson), Claire (Carragon Guest), Debbie (Jessie Mae Alonzo) and Heather (Eliza Dobson), all smitten with the same quintet of singing dreamboats.
As the story cuts back and forth between 1993 and the present, things are constantly slowed down by yet another routine from “the boys”, proving more indispensable to Rachel, Zoe, Claire, Debbie and Heather than to this particular critic. Besides, the hits of Take That have hardly the same cultural heft as those of Abba, unless one happens to be a Take That groupie.
Just as the Manchester-formed band was a prefab act designed to appeal to a wide teenage demographic, so there is a prefabricated feel to Greatest Days. Yet while there is a conspicuous attempt to tick as many boxes of its diversity inventory as possible, Coky Giedroyc's upbeat affair does come with its own quirky joie de vivre. Much of it is plain daft, much of it familiar, but the setting in rainy Clitheroe, along with its slew of fresh, talented performers, gives the film a leg-up. Aisling Bea is a genuine feather in its cap, and as the various strands of narrative begin to come together, the surface tensions take on a deeper resonance. A celebration of friendship, music and just being young, the film goes on to incorporate darker elements, such as loss and disappointment, to eventually sound a more poignant note. One musical sequence in particular (‘Back For Good’), in which the old friends are united by their younger selves, is a genuine stand-out. If, ultimately, the film reflects the cosy, feel-good sentiments of the music genre it is mining, it does so with a degree of wit and humanity.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Aisling Bea, Alice Lowe, Amaka Okafor, Jayde Adams, Marc Wootton, Lara McDonnell, Jessie Mae Alonzo, Eliza Dobson, Nandi Sawyers-Hudson, Carragon Guest, Matthew McNulty, Emma Amos, Howard Donald, Mark Owen, Gary Barlow.
Dir Coky Giedroyc, Pro Danny Perkins, Kate Solomon and Jane Hooks, Screenplay Tim Firth, Ph Mike Eley, Pro Des Amanda McArthr, Ed Mark Davies, Music Nick Foster and Oli Julian, Costumes Sian Jenkins.
Elysian Film Group/SPG3/Zurich Avenue/Head Gear Films-Elysian Film Group.
111 mins. UK. 2023. UK Rel: 16 June 2023. Cert. 12A.
