REVIEW: HONEMOONER FILM AT BRISTOL WATERSHED
For a movie that begins with the line ‘no one should be alone on their wedding day’, Honeymooner is spectacularly uplifting and fun. Filmed on a £45,000 budget it takes director, Col Spector’s, script, some brilliant acting and intersperses it all around the pubs and pretty locations in Camden Town. The giggles start early when Fran (Gerard Kearns, Shameless) is woken up on his wedding day by his best friend who calls to invite him out for yoga and to help with some advice from Deepak Chopra. With the prospect of spending, what would have been, his honeymoon alone, he is led along on what is meant to be a recovery adventure. His two best friends take him to pubs and bars, trying to cheer him up while at the same time trying to get through their own issues. His friends, however, seem to have more problems than him and their love lives are dealt with in a way that would sound more familiar spoken by women. Ben (Chris Coghill) and Jon (Al Weaver) make behaviour like bringing flowers and asking for cuddles seem a perfectly normal way for guys to behave. Along with flirting with every woman who crosses their path that is. This Watershed screening of Honeymooner was part of the programme of New British Cinema Quarterly sessions which present original films from British filmmakers. A new film from is selected from the UK’s major film festivals, and is screened each quarter and accompanied by a Question and Answer session from the filmmakers involved. Col Spector joined us after the film to engage cheerfully with the audience and tell us about his adventures in making the movie. The production was inexpensive and relied on deferred payments and bank loans for a lot of things including the use of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon. What would have been a cliché movie had it involved women in the lead roles turns into a light, refreshing and almost spiritual foray into getting over an ill-fated romance. This could very well be the British man’s answer to Eat, Pray, Love although luckily it takes itself a lot less seriously.
Words: Joanna Papageorgiou
