In what could be dubbed “The End of The First Five Minutes Of Up: The Movie”, Ordinary Love looks to be a deeply heart-wrenching drama about an older middle-age husband and wife (played by Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville), still very much in love, who are faced with a devastating health crisis. Considering Neeson’s own personal tragedy of having lost his wife Natasha Richardson twenty years ago, this feels particularly resonant and personal.
Hailed at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival but smartly held off past the awards season where it likely would’ve gotten lost in the shuffle, this is the kind of movie that I go to the movies for, as much as any other.
The theatrical platform isn’t just for blockbusters or epics; it’s meant for any movie (even those of a small, intimate scale) that can transport us into a specific life experience.
Yes, it may play well on TV, too, but a story like the one this appears to be — told with such honesty (meaning joy and heartbreak) — deserves a focused platform like the theater, rather than the living room where so many things can distract us.
Directed by Irish filmmaking duo Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn, and written Irish playwright Owen McCafferty, Ordinary Love opens on February 14, 2020.
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