Film Review - Stan and Ollie (PG)

'Well, that went well.'
'It certainly did.'

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy - I watched their films during school holiday mornings when I was little, and no one has ever matched them. Simply put, they were the greatest comedy double-act, in any medium, in the history of the world. Fact. Abbott and Costello, you say? Morecambe and Wise? French and Saunders? Sorry, all wrong. Talented though those pairings unarguably were, no duo has matched the divine inspiration of Laurel and Hardy. Which is why it's wonderful that this new movie biopic is truly worthy of their talents. 

The story largely takes place during the pair's tour of UK theatres from 1953-54. Their movie-making heyday is past, following Stan's falling-out with producer Hal Roach, and the partnership has dissolved. Now broke - due to alimony demands and the shocking fact that they received no residual payments for their on-screen work - they have reunited to recreate their old slapstick routines as a vaudeville act, while Stan struggles to negotiate them both a new film contract. (Ollie's problems are more health-related.) Existing tensions only increase once their wives join them on the tour. Whatever their chemistry as performers, the boys' real-life relationship is under strain, personality differences and past choices threatening to cause a permanent rift between the two old buddies. 

Stan and Ollie is a lovingly crafted and poignant period drama benefiting from screenwriter Jeff Pope's canny choice - to view the entire Laurel and Hardy story from the perspective of that problematic latter-day tour. As a result the film sidesteps the pitfall from which biopics tend to suffer, namely trying to tell too much and ending up a kind of greatest hits tick-box. This becomes less the story of the duo's screen relationship and more an exploration of the friendship that existed beneath, one which deepened significantly in those twilight years. The dialogue is astute as well as funny; sure there's conjecture involved regarding how the pair addressed their differences in private, yet the script cleverly mines details of their real-life story to provide emotional authenticity. If we can't know these conversations took place, it makes sense to imagine that they did.

At the movie's centre are two frankly astonishing performances from Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly as Stan and Ollie respectively. Their pairing captures the symbiotic perfection that existed between the original duo, so it's odd that one or the other has gained a separate nomination from certain awards bodies. That each works so well is due to the chemistry achieved between the two. There's also a sense of who these guys were in real life - Stan the creative brains behind the operation, Ollie the charming bon viveur - while aspects of their movie personas, whether a style of walking or a nervous thumb-twiddle, keep showing through. (Kudos too to the make-up department, particularly for Reilly's convincing prosthetics as the heavy later-life Hardy.) It's all immaculately observed, as are the pair's recreation of classic Laurel and Hardy routines - like the iconic song and dance sequences from Way Out West or a joyous excerpt from County Hospital. ('Hard-boiled eggs aaand nuts! Hmph!')

And if the elegiac tone threatens to makes things too sedate, a whole new momentum is achieved when Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson arrive as the comedians' wives Ida Kitaeva and Lucille. Protective of their husbands in different ways and just as inclined to bicker as the boys, they're a comedy injection in their own right, resulting - as Rufus Jones' slippery theatrical agent puts it - in 'two double-acts for the price of one'. The interaction between the girls is scintillating (Ida imperious and Lucille determined to bring her down a peg), while that with their husbands only adds to the story's pathos.

Ironically for a movie dealing with two of the funniest men ever to grace a cinema screen, Stan and Ollie is more likely to inspire the other kind of tears. There's some lovely humour here, not least when the pair riff on their own routines for members of the public, but there's as much melancholy in the harking back to glories of old. Ultimately though this is a warm-hearted and immensely moving tribute - not only to the comedy couple who made successive generations laugh till they cried, but to the depth of the friendship that defined both their lives. A triumph then? It certainly is, Stanley.

Gut Reaction: The laughter of recognition, and more tearing-up than at any film I saw in the previous twelve months. 

Memorable Moment: Classic improv on the cross-channel ferry. (The movie's funniest and most touching moment all in one.)

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. The real Stan and Ollie needed two genius performances to do them justice. Coogan and Reilly deliver, in one of the most touching cinema bromances you'll ever see.