A well-to-do wife learns that being a free woman is better than being a kept lady in Richard Loncraine's comedy drama, choreographed to appeal to mature audiences who checked into The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Finding Your Feet (12A)
**
Watching movies has taught me all about what happens when you get old. When you get old you realise that you've wasted most of your life, you fling off all of your inhibitions, embrace existence, learn to twinkle incandescently, decide you no longer care what people think and do all kinds of embarrassing things: like make Finding Your Feet.
Lady Sandra Abbott (Imelda Staunton) can barely contain her joy when her husband Mike (John Sessions) announces that he is stepping back from public duties to enjoy a slower pace of life. But she discovers he is having an affair with mutual friend Pamela (Josie Lawrence).
Sandra goes off to stay with her non-conformist free spirit sister, Bif (Celia Imrie), who lives on a London housing estate. Imagine a family where Celia Imrie is the common one.
Once there she is cleansed of her stuck up ways by joining a dance group at the local community centre dance, where she puts her best foot forward with fellow singletons Charlie (Timothy Spall), Ted (David Hayman) and Jackie (Joanna Lumley).
Another thing that happens when you get old is that you stop liking surprises, so every tragedy and joy that happens to the characters is completely predictable and just as you'd expect it to be.
With its cast and north London locations, it is like a Mike Leigh film based on a script by an ITV sitcom writer where nobody was allowed to improvise.
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