Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie''s plot.
"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!" The Cornish prayer.
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Jacques Chevalier: All the people I deal with are scum. I'm a little scummy myself. You are not scum. That worries me
Grace Trevethyn: I take exception to that. I come from a long line of scum. My dear husband was one of the scummiest men to walk the face of this earth.
Jacques Chevalier: My apologies
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Matthew: I avoid confrontation. If you grew up in Glasgow in the 1970's you'd avoid confrontation too. All I want is a easy life. I want to grow some vegetables, smoke some refer, sing carols at Christmas time and who knows? One day I'd like to be a dad and raise a couple of *** children. But that's it! I've had it! I've *** had enough. I'm going! No more Mr. Cuddly Toy! I'm not hanging around here to be a whipping boy for Ganja Grace and Captain Nicky the *** lobster queen.
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After her husband's accidental suicide, Grace Trevethyn (Brenda Blethyn), a mature English lady, finds out that he was hundreds of thousand of pounds in debt, and that she is about to lose her home. How can she raise the money, when her only marketable skill is her expertise at gardening? Luckily, Matthew Stewart (Craig Ferguson) her Scottish handyman/gardener has recently bought some killer weed, and he has a few ideas. After that, the movie goes to pot. What follows is, of course, Up in Smoke, Britcom style.
Saving Grace is funny, of that there can be no doubt, but the average US viewer is probably only half aware of what is going on. Now it may come as a surprise to some Americans, especially the ones that don't watch PBS, but the English speak English really well. We have been doing it for years. Most Americans speak it like the English write, where the words mean just what they say. But English, as spoken by the English, is a totally different language. Here a word or a phrase can mean virtually anything, if it is spoken with the proper nuance, the right tone of voice, or the correct facial expression. In a typical conversation, new idioms are created, used and discarded at the speed of thought, and everyone involved can understand perfectly.
For example, while American might say that a young lady is oversexed, I might say that she waters the garden too often, and even though no one has heard the phrase "waters the garden" used in that way before, they know exactly what I mean. Of course, the conversation would have to be one where a statement about gardens would seem perfectly innocuous. An American of Italian decent can talk freely in her native language knowing that many others can't understand. Is it really so surprising that the English can do it too? And while Italians are said to talk with their hands, the English do it with their eyebrows, their smiles and the twinkle in their eyes.
My wife is a "Joisey" girl, of Irish decent and well anglicized by contact with me and my family. Even so, half the jokes in a typical Britcom go wizzing past her head. To make matters worse, England is very parochial, and meanings change with local idiom. That is never more true than in a small Cornish village, the setting for this movie.
Cornwall is very remote, surrounded by sea, joined to Devon by a narrow strip of land. For most of its history, the huge swamps in Devon, the rugged terrain, and the treacherous, rocky coast, has kept it separate from the rest of England. That very same terrain made shipwrecking, piracy and smuggling the local cash crops. When Grace says she is descended from scum in the quote above, she really means it. Read it again. It's funnier now you know the background, isn't it?
And so, the plot of Saving Grace, which relies on virtually everyone in the village knowing what is going on in the potting shed and "turning a blind eye," would be totally unbelievable in Stoke-on-Trent or Chipping Sodbury, but in Cornwall it rings true. Just be thankful they didn't use authentic Cornish and Scottish dialect, or they would have had to insert a dubbing track and/or subtitles.
Another odd thing about the British is their insistence on using actors that can act. Just imagine if that ever caught on in Hollywood. Even though Saving Grace is far from high comedy, the performances are excellent, especially Brenda Blethyn in the lead, who consistently manages to be worldly wise and naive at the same time, and Tchéky Karyo (Kiss of the Dragon), whose cameo almost steals the movie.
Alas though, in the final analysis, Saving Grace doesn't have any more plot than a Cheech and Chong special. The middle of the movie sags and slows down as it waits for the end. The end too, is disappointing. Not because it is not manic and hilariously funny -- no, just the opposite. It has some of the funniest scenes you will ever see, since the demise of Monty Python and the Ministry of Funny Walks. The problem is, it is too *** short, to quote Matthew. Once it reaches a plateau of hilarity that has the audience gasping for breath, it lets us down easy, as it rushes too quickly to a cunning but somewhat contrived conclusion. With ten minutes less middle and ten minutes more end, this would have been a much better movie.
So sit down and put your feet up with a nice cup of tea, and two or three boxes of Oreos. Saving Grace gets three stars only but is eminently watchable.
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Saving Grace is a ninety-minute long marijuana commercial that would have made the folks at NORML proud. While it appears to contain only one bad word, it contains it many, many times and uses it as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb and conjunction. This might not be suitable for the kiddies, and I probably wouldn't let my parents watch it either, at least, not while I was in the room.
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Saving Grace (2000)
Directed by Nigel Cole
Story by Mark Crowdy
Screenplay by Craig Ferguson and Mark Crowdy
Cast:
Brenda Blethyn - Grace Trevethyn
Craig Ferguson - Matthew Stewart
Martin Clunes - Dr. Martin Bamford
Tchéky Karyo - Jacques Chevalier
Jamie Foreman - China MacFarlane
Bill Bailey - Vince
Valerie Edmond - Nicky
Tristan Sturrock - Harvey
Clive Merrison - Quentin Rhodes
Leslie Phillips - Vicar Gerald Percy
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