The two of them communicate absolute trust in each other, and inspire the same in the audience. Cancer dramas are not uncommon; what lifts Ordinary Love just enough out of the ordinary is its concern with how a married couple survives the ordeal. They’re even slow drivers. Shouts Manville, “No, we’re not!”, Their lives were already hermetic, especially since they lost their daughter, Debbie. The movie about a trying year in their lives is called “Ordinary Love,” and the opening scenes paint a modest, careful picture of unexceptional middle-class existence. Then there is surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. There are strong, sensitive performances in a melancholic film about a couple dealing with the fallout from a cancer diagnosis, Fri 13 Sep 2019 15.25 EDT “Ordinary Love” has space to notice the details, like when Tom chooses to drink tea in the hospital cafeteria rather than hold Joan’s hand upstairs. Ordinary Love stars Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson as a long-married couple whose lives are disrupted when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Very little happens on the surface of Owen McCafferty’s script, as everything life or death is taking place inside Manville. If they ever had friends, they don’t appear to now. Joan and Tom pay a tender farewell to her breasts in a scene so intimate it is almost intrusive. Tom (Neeson) and Joan (Manville) have an amiable, affectionate relationship with a lot of gentle teasing that may sound like bickering but is really their form of banter, clearly honed over decades together. Those who are critically ill pass through the stages unforgettably defined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Health care professionals are sympathetic but removed. An everyday couple with a remarkable love, there is an ease to their relationship which only comes from spending a lifetime together. When the directors allow one shot of green leaves reflecting on Manville’s face as the camera looks in through a window at her chatting with terminally ill new friend Peter (David Wilmot), we appreciate the break from the visual claustrophobia but also experience a ripple of annoyance that the film doesn’t trust us to feel her emotions without it. When Joan is diagnosed with breast cancer, the course of her treatment shines a light on their enduring devotion, as they must. Yet, they’re plenty of company for themselves, two people whose mouths are always in motion, delighted to mock-bicker over buying Brussels sprouts or going out for a beer. In their airless house, any small change is noticeable, like when Joan adds a jig of Worcestershire to the soup. There is a horrible, and all too real, choreography of agony when Tom and Joan are placidly seated in the hospital waiting area and Tom announces he needs to go to the lavatory; Joan testily tells him not to be long, because her name could be called at any moment – and course it is, the moment Tom has gone. Ordinary Love is an argument that, as hard as that is, it’s worth it. Bonded and Unbound: Sean Connery, 1930-2020, Disney+'s The Mandalorian Makes a Valiant Return in Season Two Opener, Amazon's Truth Seekers is Missing Jokes and Scares. But Manville and Neeson have a real empathy and intimacy on screen. It is, perhaps, something we have all seen before in the movies when a character goes to talk to the gravestone of a departed loved one. Profanity. But you may also wish there were more. They are going through it together, but in a cruelly asymmetrical fashion. She wants to pretend everything is ordinary; he wants to do something. Later, another patient preparing for her first treatment gives Joan the chance to pass on that sympathetic reassurance, even as she looks at the young woman's long hair, knowing what is to come. The couples who stay together figure out how to do that. Then there is surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. “We’re both going through this,” Neeson protests. Find out what critics think of over 70 key titles debuting at the major... Get a list of the best movie and TV titles recently added (and coming... Music title data, credits, and images provided by, Movie title data, credits, and poster art provided by. Nell Minow reviews movies and DVDs each week as The Movie Mom online and on radio stations across the US. The film’s strength lies in the performances — two fine actors elevating their roles from the touchingly mundane to the suddenly momentous. Manville is a sharp, quicksilver presence, her face hovering between impatience and astonishment. There is nothing ordinary about Tom and Joan, and their story shows us that there is nothing ordinary about love. Ordinary Love opens across Canada on Feb. 21. Mortality. Ordinary Love is a film with a cloud-cover of ordinariness. "Ordinary Love" stars Liam Neeson and the exquisite Lesley Manville in the story of a couple who are navigating the world of serious illness, the euphemisms and delays, from initial tests that are "concerning" to the diagnosis: "the results weren't what we hoped." Losing the one you love is a fear anyone can relate to. We know that they had a daughter, named Debbie, who died, though we don’t know how or how long ago that tragedy occurred. An everyday couple with a remarkable love, there is an ease to their relationship which only comes from spending a lifetime together. Now their fragile relationship is further tested when Joan is diagnosed with breast cancer. This universal anxiety is what lies at the heart of romantic drama Ordinary Love which follows Joan (Lesley Manville) and … Free (& Subscription) Games for All Platforms: New & Upcoming, November Preview: 19 TV Shows & New Movies to Watch at Home. Is it too much to bear? Manville has to go through a kaleidoscope of moods and emotions, and every one of them is precise, fearless, and searingly real. McCafferty understands the instant straight-to-the-point intimacy of fellow patients and the comfort that they get from being able to be frank with each other. Because Manville and Neeson are such potent performers, they are expert at playing out all the implications of what this experience is like. The uneasy, uncomfortable wait for Tom to return from the loo so they can all troop in to see the doctor is an ordeal of banal embarrassment. Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville in “Ordinary Love,” directed by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn. Check box if your review contains spoilers, Now Playing: Ordinary Love (US Trailer 1), Joan and Tom (Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson) have been married for many years. And that's why despite the good and credible performances of Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville, the film never manages to overcome the same barrier that its story imposes on it because although it doesn't cease to be a good subject, there's little they can extract that it feels like something new or different.

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