Best film of the 2015 Edinburgh Film Festival for me was an ultra-low-budget British comedy set in a poets' camping retreat in the Black Mountains of Wales - 'Black Mountain Poets'. Claire and Lisa are sisters and lorry thieves. Escaping from their most recent bungled robbery they wind up pretending to be 'beat poets' at the afore-mentioned retreat. While there they both fall for the smouldering charms of Richard (Tom Cullen from 'Downton Abbey'), make a mess of putting up tents and hear lots of bad poetry.
The film certainly isn't original: earnest poets are a wide-open goal for any comedy scriptwriter, and it will surprise no-one that our two anti-heroines Learn Important Life Lessons and that at least one of them discovers her inner muse. But it's so good-natured, with dialogue that often sounds improvised, but not in that embarrassing actors-not-sure-what-to-do way, and it contains some good performances - particularly from Dolly Wells (of 'Doll and Em' fame) and Alice Lowe, who really spark off each other as Claire and Lisa. Goodness knows if the film will get a wide - or any - distribution, but if it does, try to see it - you'll leave the cinema with a smile on your face.
The film certainly isn't original: earnest poets are a wide-open goal for any comedy scriptwriter, and it will surprise no-one that our two anti-heroines Learn Important Life Lessons and that at least one of them discovers her inner muse. But it's so good-natured, with dialogue that often sounds improvised, but not in that embarrassing actors-not-sure-what-to-do way, and it contains some good performances - particularly from Dolly Wells (of 'Doll and Em' fame) and Alice Lowe, who really spark off each other as Claire and Lisa. Goodness knows if the film will get a wide - or any - distribution, but if it does, try to see it - you'll leave the cinema with a smile on your face.