REVIEW
Sometimes Always Never
Stars: 3.5
Starring Bill Nighy, Sam Riley, Alice Lowe, Jenny Agutter, Tim McInnerny, and Alexei Sayle
Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Directed by Carl Hunter
Rated: PG for coarse language and substance use
Runtime: 91 minutes
Now playing at the Princess Theatre, 10337 82 Ave. in Edmonton, princesstheatre.ca
It’s hard not to fall in love with Sometimes Always Never star Bill Nighy’s marvelously droll reading, the colour palette, the creative staging that occasionally comes across like puppet theatre that is slightly off-kilter (or at least off-centre), the dry as a proper gin martini British sense of humour … even the detective plot and the Scrabble theme. It’s based on a short story called Triple Word Score that was then adapted into this screenplay by the fantastic writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, whose other works Welcome to Sarajevo and Code 46 rank high on this critic’s list, too.
Director Carl Hunter used to be a graphic designer/art director for album art (The Clash) so his unique visual style is something to note if not truly admire. It’s actually perfect for this story of a father and son with a strained relationship. Alan (Nighy) has literally spent years searching for his son Michael who ran away during a particularly bitter and contested match of the fabulous game of spelling tiles. That sort of thing can dwell on the brain, and in many ways, it has left its psychological marks all over Alan’s ability to have relationships with anyone else. About the only stable acquaintance he seems to have is an anonymous combatant who he keeps playing against via a Scrabble-type app on his phone. To call him emotionally crippled might be too on the nose but there it is.
Those psychological marks are especially felt by Peter (Sam Riley), the son “who didn’t leave,” as he says. Together, they’re off to help dear old dad settle the family matter once and for all. It’s a fairly standard odd couple father/son story but the directing is really what sets this one apart from the crowd. It’s quirky and fun, more than a little off but so is Peter’s hairstyle. For the story, this works.
On the other hand, I found the deadpan-ness of everything just a bit too much overall. The film scrolls down at barely 90-minutes but at a snail’s pace, making it a bit of a slog to get through. Still worth it, if only to think of the word "jazz" as a perfectly high scoring yet impossible Scrabble word.
