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Reviews
Military Wives (2019)
Not what I was expecting
I watched the Military Wives Choir perform their song "Wherever You Are" at the Festival of Remembrance on the night it went out and also the Gareth Malone "The Choir" series which featured the development of this choir and how the song was created.
This film is a rough approximation of that process with no sign anywhere of the wonderful Gareth. Or the song, presumably permission issues somewhere there.
I loved how accurate a representation of the lives of the wives and children of military personnel left behind when they deploy overseas this was. As a forces child I well remember the anxiety when dad was away in Northern Ireland in the 70s and the Falklands in the 80s. The worry at news reports on the radio, anxiety when the phone rang unexpectedly. I don't know how mum would have coped at answering the door to find a padre and an officer on the step, too awful to consider. Even all this time later I can feel that worry.
The Different approaches of the Officers wife and the Sgt Major's wife to managing "keeping the wives occupied" is exactly how it would be. I went on to serve myself and the difference in approach between officers and other ranks is very much chalk and cheese.
Entertaining and tells a story but clashes a little with relatively recent memories of how this choir actually came about.
The Colour Room (2021)
Lies to Children
A historically inaccurate film in so many ways, Where were the rest of Clarice's siblings for a start. The Meeting with Gordon Forsyth is a doozer, he actually TAUGHT Clarice at the art school her employers sent her to. Several "missing" parts to the story (were they filmed but not included in the final cut) such as what happened to Colley Shorters wife? The Painting Demo in the shop window happened in a store in London quite a few years after Bizarre was released and it was already selling well. The whole thing about getting her stuff recognised seems very contrived. I think the whole thing fits into a "lies to Children" framework, simplifying a story so much for the idiot level that while there is a grain of truth much of it is in fact wrong.