Review: Unfinished Song (on DVD)

Unfinished Song
[DVD Unfinished]

It’s amazing how easy it is to stumble across unknown little gems in the libraries’ DVD collection. This was a 2012 film my wife found for us to watch, and I’ll have to admit — I’d never heard of it. But it turned out to be marvelous little movie!

Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp play Marion and Arthur, an older, retired couple in a typical British “working class” suburb. She’s the vivacious, outgoing type and he’s the grumpy, grouchy type. But that doesn’t stop Arthur from taking his wife to the regular meetings of the small local choir she’s a member of…even though she’s dying of cancer. That choir, led by charismatic young choir director Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton), is experimenting in non-traditional song choices as they practice to appear in a singing competition.

When Marion succumbs to her disease, Arthur is left on his own — estranged from his son James (Christopher Eccleston), and not interested in his late wife’s more “social” friends. But something pulls him back to the choir group, and ultimately he takes Marion’s place in the choir. It’s the first step — of many — as Arthur attempts to reconnect with the world around him, post-Marion.

This is a sweet, sad, sentimental film, with tremendous performances by Redgrave, Stamp and Arterton. Strongly recommended!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Calendar Girls.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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