His son is comfortable taking care of his kids while his wife works at a job center.) But the movie is rather routine, resembling other crowd pleasing movies that center on the working class without seriously discussing politics the best of which was "Brassed Off." The movie has more than enough silliness and amateur psychology to go around. "On a Clear Day" is a nice pleasant movie about masculinity, the generation gap and trying to find a purpose in life in middle age.(Frank has always supported his family but that may change now that his wife is looking for work outside the home. Meanwhile, his wife, Joan(Brenda Blethyn), is secretly learning how to drive a bus. Suddenly he has a goal in life - to swim the English Channel. The only hobby he enjoys is swimming at the pool with his pals. For him, work is everything and is at a loss what to do next, looking for a new job not coming easy. "On a Clear Day" starts with Frank(Peter Mullan) being made redundant after working thirty-six years at the shipyards. Still, this is a solid movie that benefits from a committed performance from Peter Mullan, and the rest of the cast is more than solid too. Even if they're laid on a little thickly. And while the humor is pretty light, there's some interesting dramatic developments here. And I'm glad that I wasn't, I chose this movie because I was in the mood for something light. It's clear I wasn't watching Amour last night. The rest of the cast is good, but none of the characters really have any actual depth. Even if they're arguing throughout the entire movie, that moment where they recall their younger days would've made the entire thing touching. I think it would've worked in a movie where the husband and wife spent more time interacting with each other. It was supposed to be a sweet scene, showcasing that they're truly in love. It's like these two spend the entire movie apart and there's ONE scene where they share a sweet moment of remembrance to when they were young and dating. Peter Mullan is great here and Brenda Blethyn, an incredibly talented woman, is really good here as well but I wish her character's relationship with her husband would've been better developed. The cast is more than solid, no problem there. They didn't need to lay it on as thickly as they did. I think ONCE Frank says that he's swimming the English Channel, you'll know the reason why he's doing it. I think it tries too hard to try to tie the symbolism of Frank swimming the English Channel to what happened with his son to each other. But I think the movie probably lays on its message, or its drama rather, a little too thick for my tastes. It's certainly easy to see why Frank is the way he is, and why he has pushed his only son away, his other son drowned. I just think the script is probably a little too sentimental for my tastes. In this movie he plays a man with far more emotional 'baggage' on him than his other characters, and I think he does a great job here really. And he certainly looks, and acts, the part as he has a very intimidating presence. His performance was certainly a pleasant surprise, because Mullan, almost always, tends to play these tough, mean-looking gangster types. This is another one of those types of films and I'd say this was pretty good, all due in part to Peter Mullan's performance. Apparently the U.K has a propensity for these sentimental, sometimes even cloying, crowd-pleasing movies where blue-collar workers, or a community, fight against the odds in order to overcome some emotional baggage.
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