While we bade farewell to the Brockmans at the end of the 2014 series, Hamilton and Jenkin’s début feature, What We Did On Our Holiday, looks for all the world to be re-fitting their dysfunctional family shtick for the big screen. That it actually turns out to be something more unexpected might be worth the price of admission alone. However, fearing that Doug’s ebullient father Gordie (Billy Connolly) might not be long for this life, they take the kids to hang out with their granddad on the occasion of his 75th birthday party. Further arguments erupt when the London McLeods’ arrival interferes with the best-laid plans of Doug’s busybody brother Gavin (Ben Miller) and the bickering amongst the grown-ups only intensifies from there. With a more pragmatic attitude to his twilight years, Gordie relishes the opportunity to bond with his grand-kids and share the benefits of his wisdom with them when it comes to matters of life, love, death and Viking customs and it’s in this regard that the film really sings. Even better, they all have Billy Connolly to bounce off of. The Big Yin is on top form here, at once convivial and reassuring, bringing both tremendous emotional heft and an instant, magical chemistry with the three young leads. However, without giving too much away, the logline for this film should probably be very different. Pike and Tennant are present throughout, but “a couple tries to hide their impending divorce from their kids” pretty much gets blown out of the water, courtesy of an extremely ballsy tonal shift at the midpoint. The effect of maintaining such a delicate balance of light, gentle comedy and wildly macabre subject matter means that it can never get darker than it is at the midpoint. On the downside, this does make the broad strokes and sparsity of the supporting characters look quite ill-thought-out. With due credit to Miller’s performance, Gavin is an ogre in the least funny way, utterly ignorant of his long-suffering wife’s serious troubles and bullying his painfully shy son terribly. Once that self-imposed bottom is set, there’s little choice but to disregard the severity of his character on the incline to more comedic setpieces. On the other hand, it’s the unusual structure that makes What We Did On Our Holiday one of the more surprising films of the year. Calling it ‘surprising’ isn’t the same as saying it’s a great comedy, but seeing as how we go into most films knowing exactly what to expect from total trailer saturation, the marketing folks behind this one deserve some kudos for pulling a fast one on us. Plus, the unusual structure lets the directors get away with a quite impressive bit of tonal shifting that still feels entirely in keeping with Outnumbered‘s sense of humour. Some would have blanched at making this anything other than either a wild farce or a much darker comedy, but it’s in that mid-ground, where other comedy directors may fear to tread, that Hamilton and Jenkin thrive. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
