Very Annie Mary film review

certificate_15

VERY ANNIE MARY

Very Annie Mary is a film which raises several questions, perhaps the most pertinent being: on which day of the week did someone commission it and couldn't they have called in sick on that day? Other relevant enquiries include whether or not anyone actually watched this uneven mess from start to finish once it had been edited (doubtful), whether it is supposed to be a comedy or a tragedy (pass), whether anyone had the temerity to tell the leading actress to control her performance just a little (seems unlikely) and whether the title is supposed to induce people to come and see it (time will tell). It all has the feeling of an in-joke which you are glad not to be part of, and unfortunately it seems that cast and crew had a grand time royally pissing even more undeserved lottery money up the wall.

The uneven mishmash of a plot centres around the title character played by Rachel Griffiths. Looking about 35, she is evidently meant to be considerably younger but she is most certainly scatty, as the film relentlessly tries to tell us. Awkward, badly dressed and gawky, she lives in a small Welsh village with her widower father Jonathan Pryce. Pryce is one of the town's characters: a baker who delivers his food wearing a Luciano Pavarotti mask and belting out arias over his van's loudspeakers. Music runs in the family - Annie Mary herself was a champion singer herself at the age of 15 but hasn't sung a note since her mother's death. Pryce treats his daughter like a young child however, and soon she dreams of escaping to a house of her own: fortunately one has just come on the local market and will be hers if she can raise the princely sum of £120 as a deposit.

Much of this is relayed in a style that is meant to be funny but falls as flat as Annie Mary's singing. There is a side plot involving Annie Mary's best friend who is suffering from a terminal disease. The whole town has been trying to save enough money to send her on a last trip to Disneyland, but when Annie Mary gets hold of the cash and ends up wasting it on an unsuccessful bet on the Grand National, the trip is off. To add to her misery, her father has a stroke and their bakery looks doomed.