Up in Smoke
FILM: Saving Grace
DIRECTOR: Nigel Cole
STARRING: Brenda Blethyn, Craig Ferguson
GRADE: B
|
|
THOSE WACKY BRITS AND THEIR WEED! GRACE (BRENDA BLETHYN) GETS HIGH WITH MATTHEW (CRAIG FERGUSON) IN SAVING GRACE.
|
Well, in case you have not noticed, the days of "just say no" are over. For
that matter, so are the days of "... but I didn't inhale." Al Gore inhaled a
lot. George W. Bush snorted like a horse with hay fever. And so in the same
season that the U.S. Supreme Court overrules a California law permitting the
use of marijuana for prescribed medical purposes, we're nonetheless back to the
drug film. Earlier this summer, we had Greg Harrison's Groove, which
celebrated the drug-fueled rave scene. And now we have Saving Grace, a
British comedy promoting the thesis that it's OK to grow your own if you really
have to.
Actually, I wax flip about a movie I like pretty well. Written by
Craig Ferguson and Mark Crowdy and directed by Nigel Cole, Saving Grace
is the story of Grace Trevethyn (Brenda Blethyn), an upper-middle-class
widow left destitute by the secretive and disastrous business shenanigans of
her late husband. Grace has always lived a comfortable life in the small
Cornish town of St. Isaacs, where she's widely popular for her good cheer,
fundamental decency and habit of hosting teas at her gracious home. Grace is so
likable that she's even cherished by her handyman, a Scottish slacker named
Matthew (Craig Ferguson) whose priorities include a regular snuggle with his
fisherwoman girlfriend, Nicky (Valerie Edmond), and a reliable supply of
weed.
That's why Grace's suddenly dire circumstances are such an
all-around bummer. No money for Grace, no salary for Matthew. No salary for
Matthew, no cash for Matthew's stash. Besides her world-class friendliness,
Grace does have one other outstanding attribute: she's a gifted gardener. And
it just so happens Matthew has been trying to cut back on expenses by growing
some grass of his own. His plants are puny, but maybe Grace can do something
with them. Now there's an idea whose time has evidently come back around from
the 1970s. Cheech and Chong would be delighted to learn that their life's work
lives on.
The plot of this flick is even more far-fetched than that of The
Full Monty (whose fans should find this picture to their liking), and it
gets more extreme as it goes along. Not only does Grace grow the dope, but
eventually she heads off to the mean streets of London to find a buyer for it.
A series of dope-smoking scenes are cliched and go on far too long, almost as
if the filmmakers had smoked a little themselves while they shot the film and
again when they were doing their editing. Grace's late-blooming romance with a
mobster (Tcheky Karyo) arrives as if from another movie, and an abrupt
revelation of literary talent arrives as if from another planet. In short, by
its end, the picture falls apart and reconstitutes itself into something almost
irksomely fantastic.
Still, in the early going, Saving Grace is reminiscent of
that most wonderful of small-town British comedies, Bill Forsyth's
unforgettable Local Hero. As in the Scottish masterpiece, everybody in
town is a daft sweetheart. Only in St. Isaacs, everybody is a pothead. The old
ladies at the groceries get so stoned they jabber like squirrels. The town
doctor finds nirvana in a room full of smoldering hemp. The cop and the pastor
look the other way without so much as a tut-tut. Saving Grace definitely
fails to live up to its own terrific first hour, but it establishes so much
good will in the early going that you forgive its excesses at the end.
|
