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| Kristin Scott Thomas in "Military Wives" Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com |
Peter Cattaneo is a director who has a niche with stories involving the performing arts. While this was done so to a lesser extent with 2001’s “Lucky Break” and 2008’s “The Rocker,” he still has the early success of his acclaimed 1997 comedy, “The Full Monty.” Having not directed a movie for over a decade, Cattaneo returns to the crowd-pleasing roots that helped make “The Full Monty” a success, bringing us his latest film, “Military Wives.” While this movie goes for the easy heart-tugging approach, it does so in a way that still makes this film a moving experience.
On a military base in England, a group of women go about their day-to-day lives while their spouses are deployed to the Middle East. Thinking that the women should bond more, Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Lisa (Sharon Horgan) decide to start a choir. When their talents are soon discovered, they are asked to perform at the Royal Albert Hall for its Festival of Remembrance.
Thomas and Horgan make for a wonderful pair of actresses whose characters’ personalities disagree with each other, offering some fun humor throughout as they learn to work together. However, what draws you into their growing friendship is their emotional connection towards what it’s like to not only be military spouses, but to also be parents in a military family. We see how this impacts their daily lives as they try to help the other women on the base keep their minds off the constant worry of their spouses being in danger, and the bond that Thomas and Horgan create help to emphasize the characters’ need for a common goal amongst people who are going through the same kind of emotional pain.
The entire ensemble of the choir offers terrific chemistry, but two of the standouts are Gaby French as Jess, a timid yet gifted singer who soon becomes the choir’s soloist, and Amy James-Kelly as Sarah, the newest resident on the base. However, all who are involved do well in exhibiting the nerve-racking wait for any bad news, while also showing how much a stress relief, such as the choir, can help them ease their situation.
While the screenplay by Rachel Tunnard and Rosanne Flynn pretty much plays out how you would expect, there’s still a poignant angle at which to explore stories about the military as it focuses on the loved ones who are waiting at home and what they do to cope. Despite there being many characters, we’re given some scenes here and there where we have an opportunity to learn about many of the women on the base and what they’re experiencing. While a lot of the dialogue is understandably upfront about the hardships in which the women find themselves, it still refrains from going into emotional manipulation, and there are also bits of dialogue that are rather understated when focusing on the spouses’ plight that manage to have a lasting dramatic effect.
Cattaneo’s direction is rather by-the-numbers and what you would expect from a straightforward movie like this, but the old-fashioned approach still helps make this the crowd-pleaser that brings out heartfelt and witty performances and allows us to feel the anxiety and sacrifice that the soldiers and their spouses make during wartime.
Despite the standard direction, Cattaneo delivers when it comes to the end sequence at the Royal Albert, where the choir performs an original song, “Home Thoughts from Abroad,” that they write from their experiences as spouses of soldiers. What they give is an uplifting and emotional performance that is bound to get you misty eyed and solidifies the relationships that the women have built amongst each other over the course of the film. What helps make this scene so powerful is that you don’t hear the song until this sequence, which puts you in the place of the choir’s audience as they’re absorbed by the poignancy of the song.
As a thank-you note to the armed forces and their spouses, “Military Wives” is a movie that, like the choir in the story, deserves your cheers and applause.
Grade: B+
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