Bardlerx Strictly average movie

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

edwagreen An Irish couple have secrets after years of marriage. She is aspiring to pass a test to drive a bus and he wants to swim the English Channel.It takes nearly the entire movie to explain that the family had a swimming tragedy years before.Brenda Blethyn, so wonderful in "Secrets and Lies," and "Little Voice" is the mother here. Sorry, Miss Blethyn this is not the former film here.The father has an assortment of friends who are basically insecure. Of course, his successful conquest of the channel will change all that.They also have a married son who is unemployed with twin boys.With thick Irish accents, it is often difficult to understand what the characters are trying to say. As an example, Miss Blethyn states and I say it phonetically- "I joost faeled mi buz tezt."Jump for joy when the major swim and the film are over and the credits begin to roll.

noralee "On a Clear Day" is another of a familiar genre of the plucky bloke who is retired (like "The World's Fastest Indian") and/or unemployed (like "The Full Monty") and/or grieving (like the "Rocket Man" mini-series shown in the U.S. on BBC America) and finds self-esteem by achieving an impossible-seeming, galvanizing goal. Alex Rose's debut script tries hard in an over-long effort to find conflict, personal growth and resolution as inspired by a true story of a laid-off dock worker who decides to swim the English Channel, but it is ultimately not as moving as the best of these can be (David Lynch's atypical "The Straight Story").The film does find a fresh angle in an exploration of masculinity, as Peter Mullan's typical working class guy, who of course takes an opportunity to tell off his boss, is contrasted with his son the house husband (nice to see ruggedly handsome, earnest Sean McGinley who I mostly know from TV series) with a too bland wife but with adorable twin sons. While it was also amusing that this is the second movie I've seen this year where a Scotsman is inexplicably held up as an example of the New Man, as in "Take My Eyes (Te doy mis ojos)", their estrangement seems trumped up over a not very big secret and too drawn out, as is everything in the film, and could just as well be about the difficulties of male-to-male communication, as it finally resolves in a lesson learned for both. There is a lovely small scene with Mullan watching a class of handicapped kids at a swim lesson, but unfortunately that's used for inspiration and not second career options.The impacts his efforts have on his wife and the usual assortment of eccentric friends to be inspired to take parallel steps toward conquering their very personal fears are a heartwarming, if very predictable, side story, and I would have welcomed more of their lives and half-hour less of Mullan's comic training travails (though the funniest lines were already in the trailer). Brenda Blethyn in particular is wonderful as a mature, independently determined wife with a dream to become a bus driver, the opposite of her fluttery "Mrs. Bennett" in "Pride & Prejudice". The cinematography makes great use of the Glasgow street scenes in sharp visual contrast with the white cliffs of Dover and the bluest Channel water I've ever seen in a British film.

Alistair Newlands Not since old school days of Local Hero or Gregory's Girl have I had the pleasure of watching a real gem of a film from Scotland as ON A CLEAR DAY.. A tale of of a recently unemployed ship yard worker who seeks to heal the broken relationship with his grown up son after a tragic family accident..Not from emotional grovelling but by setting himself an amazing challenge of swimming the English channel Please check this out.. and swerve the American cheese-munger comedies. This is a neat and tidy comedy with raw emotion and a strong cast and plot to boot...

bopdog This movie has strengths and weaknesses. Some of the strengths are its attempt to tell a 'real' story, without recourse to shtick, cliché, or pop-star trickery so common on TV and in movies these days. It seems obvious that the writer and director had visions of something deep, meaningful, as well as entertaining. Another strength is the reliance on the humans, and their real-world behaviors, fears, and hopes (etc.) for the 'current' flow of the movie. The camera lingers, the dialogue is written to enlighten us about the emotions (pleasant as well as despairing) of the characters. It may be said this is a character driven movie, perhaps? And, all of the cast do a commendable job of providing us with the characters' humanity and depth.Some of the weaknesses, however, are how all of the individual components of the writer and director's vision are executed. Many of the threads of the story simply go nowhere--- not that we necessarily need a big plot-ish conclusion to everything. But we do need some sense, anyway, of what various expositions mean. Sure, we could accept a bit of non-convention, and even artiness, but some of the elements of this story never were stitched together with any other parts of the movie. Worse, those orphaned parts were never really stitched up as themselves--- i.e., they never really completed themselves, nor made any real sense in and of themselves. Without discussing plot details, let me breezily mention the parts with Chan, the Chinese chippy guy, for example. These had neither a start, nor a finish--- we simply saw one brief middle, as it were.Overall, this is a pleasant movie--- but it isn't a great one. I looked up the director and the writer online, and didn't find much. If they are young, or young-ish, this effort might bode well. That is, this movie resembled a good student-like product from young and promising film makers. Young, in their careers anyway, regardless of their actual calendar year age, but very talented. People to watch in the future.'On A Clear Day' made me think of quilt makers. Imagine a master-to-be quilt maker; a quilt making artist whose work will be celebrated in the UK and America, and featured on PBS and BBC documentaries and featured in museums, etc. And then imagine this future master's last 'student' project, when she was 17 years old or so, before the magic clicked and she got great. This student work shows genius and promise, both undelivered as of now. That's what 'Clear Day' is like--- a quilt whose individual pieces are great, showing bright and future success, but not put together very well, showing immaturity and a student just beginning to blossom. Oh, the cast was great, and they obviously did everything they were asked to do, and they did it very well. The ill-fitting chunks weren't their fault--- they were just an artifact of the awkward and 'green' directorial efforts.Go see it anyway--- support the growth of these folks! I gave this an encouraging 8 out of 10.