The Time of Their Lives

Joan and Pauline Collins team up for a mixed bag.

Going for old: Joan Collins, Pauline Collins and Franco Nero

Former Hollywood star Helen (Joan Collins) has reached rock bottom and believes that if she gatecrashes a film director’s funeral in France that may resurrect her non-existent career. She escapes her London retirement home with the help of Priscilla (Pauline Collins), a repressed housewife...

The unexpected pairing of Joan and Pauline Collins works surprisingly well in Roger Goldby’s amicable film. However, the clunky script is unashamedly sentimental and often doesn’t ring true – but at least it provides its leading ladies with interesting roles. Joan Collins is on the verge of sinking into stereotypical mode and could easily exchange places with Joanna Lumley’s Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. Thankfully, though, she has Pauline Collins, who often manages to spring her back to reality.

In an underwritten role, Franco Nero provides the love interest as an Italian artist living in France, while his real life daughter-in law Joely Richardson makes a brief but stylish contribution. But it is the lovely music of Stephen Warbeck, the award-winning composer of Shakespeare in Love and Papadopoulos & Sons, that provides the heart. Overall a very mixed bag.

GEORGE SAVVIDES

Cast: Joan Collins, Pauline Collins, Franco Nero, Ronald Pickup, Siân Reeves, Joely Richardson, Michael Brandon, Allene Quincy.

Dir Roger Goldby, Pro Sarah Sulick, Screenplay Roger Goldby, Ph James Aspinall, Pro Des Ana Viana, Ed Beverley Mills, Music Stephen Warbeck, Costumes Susannah Buxton.

Bright Pictures-Vertigo Releasing.
104 mins. UK. 2017. Rel: 10 March 2017. Cert. 12A.