Cemetery Junction

 Cemetery Junction 2010

• Director: Rickie Gervais and Stephen Merchant
• Seen by these directors: Gervais: Derek, Life’s Too Short, The Invention of Lying, Extras, The Office.  Merchant: Fighting with My Family, Life’s Too Short, Extras, The Office
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Christian Cooke, Felicity Jones, Tom Hughes, Jack Doolan, Ricky Gervais, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode, Steve Speirs, Burn Gorman, Anne Reid, Julie Davis, Emily Watson
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Christian Cook – Doctor Who
• Felicity Jones – On the Basis of Sex, Rogue One, The Theory of Everything, The Invisible Woman, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, Hysteria, Like Crazy, The Tempest, Doctor Who
• Tom Hughes – Red Joan, Derek, About Time, Dancing on the Edge, The Hollow Crown
• Jack Doolan – Cockneys vs Zombies
• Ricky Gervais - Derek, Life’s Too Short, The Invention of Lying, Extras, The Office.
• Ralph Fiennes – Hail Caesar, Spectre, Harry Potter, The Invisible Woman, Skyfall, Coriolanus, The Reader, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Sunshine, The English Patient, Strange Days, Schindler’s List, Wuthering Heights
• Matthew Goode – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Downton Abbey, The Imitation Game, Dancing on the Edge, Copying Beethoven
• Steve Spiers – Pirates of the Caribbean, Extras, Doctor Who, Topsy-Turvey, Star Wars, Keeping Mum, Cold Lazarus
• Burn Gorman – Imperium, Pacific Rim, The Dark Knight Rises, Johnny English Reborn, Bonekickers, Colour Me Kubrick
• Anne Reid – Last Tango in Halifax, Years and Years, The Snowman, A Song for Marion, Marchland, Doctor Who, Hot Fuzz, Rose & Maloney
• Julie Davis – Fighting with My Family, Little Britain, Love Actually
• Emily Watson – Testament of Youth, The Theory of Everything, The Book Thief, The Politician’s Husband, Fireflies in the Garden, Wah-Wah, Gosford Park, Equilibrium, Cradle Will Rock, Hilary & Jackie, The Boxer, Breaking the Waves
• Why? Gervais and Merchant
• Seen: 22 August 2022      

       Instead of listening to music by poofs, Bruce (Hughes) tells his friends Freddie (Cooke) and Snork (Doolan) to listen to Elton John. That’s the kind of sly humour we can expect from Gervais and Merchant and that’s what we get.

       Bruce gets into fights, hates his dad, works at the factory and is arrogant in his juvenile male chauvinism. Freddie aspires to a white-collar job and tries to sell insurance. He’s in love with the boss’s (Fiennes) daughter Julie (Jones) who longs to travel the world and become a photographer for The National Geographic.

       Snork is a chubby dork, offensive to women, and longs for sex and even love.

       Like all of Gervais’s and Merchant’s material, this is as cringeworthy as it is humorous, as tragic as it is funny. I’m slowly falling in love with it.

       Class, gender, ethnicity – three key words by which I judge films (and books and everything). This gets points for all three. Not to mention strong supporting roles by Watson and Reid.

4* of 5