Marvellous

Marvellous is a warm, funny drama that earns most of its optimism through Toby Jones. Neil Baldwin’s wish to be happy could have produced 90 minutes of instructions on how to live, and we tend to grow restless when a film starts improving us. Julian Farino, directing Peter Bowker’s screenplay, makes Neil interesting enough to avoid that problem. We recommend it, with a reservation about how readily it offers comfort.

Toby Jones gives Neil enough individuality to keep happiness from becoming his sole characteristic. The humour depends on our taking him seriously; an actor intent on being lovable would have made the whole thing hard to bear. We were moved by the lack of pleading in the performance, which allows Neil to be funny without asking us to congratulate ourselves for liking him. We can enjoy his company without feeling that we have been given a lesson in kindness.

Gemma Jones plays Mary, and Tony Curran plays Lou Macari, with Nicholas Gleaves as Rev Mark and Greg McHugh as Malcolm. The ensemble gives the film a welcome steadiness around its central performance. We prefer their work when the warmth remains a little untidy, rather than when everyone seems enlisted to keep us cheerful. The lead remains the reason to watch, but the film would be thinner if he had to supply all its human interest himself.

David Odd’s cinematography and Anthea Nelson’s production design are appropriately unshowy. We would not choose Marvellous for the pictures alone, but their work suits a drama whose main attraction is an actor’s understanding of a character. The surroundings do not need to compete with him for attention. That restraint helps, although we sometimes wish Julian Farino would make us a little less comfortable with what we are watching.

Elen Pierce Lewis’s editing gives the film a workable shape within its 90 minutes. There is enough room for the humour to matter, and the running time does not turn affection into an endurance test. Adrian Johnston’s music is more debatable: we welcome its warmth, but are less persuaded when it seems to be helping an emotion that the acting has already made clear. Toby Jones needs little assistance in conveying how much Neil’s happiness matters.

Our reservation is with Peter Bowker and Julian Farino’s eagerness to reassure. A hopeful character drama still needs to let uncertainty linger, and here we occasionally feel ourselves being encouraged towards a kindly response before we have quite arrived at it. That makes some of the feeling seem tidier than it should. The humour does useful work at these points, interrupting the uplift before it becomes too much.

The performance gives us sufficient reason to stay with Neil even when we are unconvinced by the film’s confidence in happiness as a choice. We need not share his outlook to care about him, and the acting leaves room for that distinction. Choose Marvellous for an evening when warmth is welcome, with the understanding that it occasionally presses its case too hard.