This little British indie from UK TV director Roy Battersby called 'Mr. Love' is a dramedy/character study about a quiet public gardener's search for love in the midst of a long, arid marriage to a shrill. It would sidle in comfortably with much of the lesser UK Handmade Pictures stuff, and includes a charming plot element that falls into the 'film within a film' category. It could hardly be a 'smaller' picture in any sense of the word, but the performances are letter-perfect without being obvious, it wears its heart on its sleeve without being maudlin, and it's slyly comical without being slapstick, yet with that odd comic sense the Brits are renowned for. The leads, Barry Jackson and Maurice Denham, have resumes as long as your arm and deservedly so. And it sports one of the most mood-appropriate and wistfully beautiful theme songs ever written.
