Saving Grace
Saving Grace | |
| Director: | Nigel Cole |
| Cast: | Brenda Blethyn, Craig Ferguson |
| Genre: | Film, Comedy |
A gentle comedy that provides more than a few self-reflective giggles for the aging boomer crowd, Saving Grace leans heavily toward the twee. Middle-aged housewife and gardener Grace (Brenda Blethyn, looking a little too prim) loses her husband in an accident. (He inexplicably falls from his airplane; "Must've been looking for the loo," offers a villager sympathetically.) The widow soon discovers with horror the scandalous amount of debt her spouse has left behind. Having no idea what to do as her beloved home is threatened, Grace agrees to grow hemp with her charming Scottish gardener, Matthew (The Big Tease's Craig Ferguson, who also co-wrote the screenplay). Almost more engaging than the shenanigans Grace and Matthew fall into, however, is a side story about the eternal adolescent Matthew being forced to grow up by his pregnant girlfriend, Nicky, a hard-working fisherwoman. It's easy to overlook all the eccentric British clichés, thanks to the stunning location shots of the small sea town of Port Isaac, which will have Anglophiles packing up and heading across the pond.