The Great Escaper
Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson are reunited for a slight, glum true-life tale.
The Caine mutiny
There has been a slew of stranger-than-fiction stories of late. But nothing feels strange about Oliver Parker’s The Great Escaper, a mere anecdote that caught a flurry of media interest back in 2014. The surprise is not that the tale has been resurrected for the big screen, but that it has inspired a second film as well, with Pierce Brosnan posing as an Irish version of Bernie Jordan. An 89-year-old pensioner, a former leading seaman in the Royal Navy, Bernie Jordan attempted to make his own way to the 70th anniversary Commemorations of D-Day in Normandy. All on his own.
And so Bernie embarks on an unlikely pilgrimage, leaves his wife behind at their coastal retreat and, much to his bewilderment, finds his journey capturing considerable press attention. Sounds familiar. Also familiar is the setting of an old people’s home, the horrors of the D-Day landing, the war time memories and all the predictable flashbacks one might expect.
What marks the film apart from all the others of its ilk is the reunion of Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, who haven’t acted together since 1975 (when they co-starred in Joseph Losey’s The Romantic Englishwoman). Now Caine is 90-years-old, Glenda was 87 (she died this year, in June) and Caine has improved with age. Much of his screen time is taken up with listening to others or staring out at sea, while Glenda fusses about their small suite of rooms, muttering and sighing, as the elderly do. “I’m bloomin’ old,” she exclaims redundantly, in a performance more theatrical than cinematic. The ghost of Ms Jackson can rest on the laurels of her King Lear on Broadway and the Tony she won a year earlier, in 2018, for Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. Not that this big-screen swan song is without its glimmers of truth. The world lost quite a talent during the actress’s withdrawal from the profession in the years 1992-2015.
As the younger Bernie, Will Fletcher sounds and looks nothing like the older Caine and the flashbacks feel too skimpy to be anything but padding. Other characters are introduced to add dressing, but serve more as distractions, while only one scene really holds any surprise or distinction. Without wishing to give anything away, let’s just say that it features the German actor Wolf Kahler (Raiders of the Lost Ark).
Otherwise, there is much commentary on the horrors of growing old (and the drugs that prop up the elderly), which makes for depressing viewing, something Craig Armstrong’s treacly, plaintive score cannot assuage. More humour might have sugared the pill, so we just have the possibility of one last adventure (like a taxi ride to Dover) to look forward to before the inevitable.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Michael Caine, Glenda Jackson, John Standing, Danielle Vitalis, Victor Oshin, Will Fletcher, Laura Marcus, Elliot Norman, Wolf Kahler, Jackie Clune, Ian Conningham.
Dir Oliver Parker, Pro Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae, Screenplay William Ivory, Ph Christopher Ross, Pro Des Nick Palmer, Ed Paul Tothill, Music Craig Armstrong, Costumes Emma Fryer, Sound Ben Baird, Dialect coach Nia Lynn.
Pathé/BBC Film/Ecosse Films/Film i Väst/Filmgate Films-Pathé.
96 mins. UK/USA. 2023. UK Rel: 6 October 2023. Cert. 12A.
