Fantastic!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Some films just feel like everyone's going through the motions, with the cast on autopilot and nary a surprise anywhere. Check this one out for starters... the individuals in it feels unfinished, as if the writer started exploring their personalities but gave up halfway through. They behave in very odd ways, with no satisfactory answers given why and no great thought as to their motives. They fall in love at the drop of a hat, are sneaky and devious one minute and yet kind and considerate the next, and OF COURSE there has to be two gay uncles dishing out advice on love. YAWN.And don't get me started on the event which ultimately repairs the relationship between our central duo... it's the first time I've seen a couple overcome the myriad of difficulties they have over a dodgy dance cover sung by the bloke's mother. Who needs a marriage counselor when you've got a middle aged X factor reject? When the pair made them goo-goo eyes at each other over the dance floor while his mummy warbled on, my breakfast almost made an unwelcome reappearance.Still, it's not all bad news. The actors are certainly game, and throw themselves into their parts... as limited as they are. And there is the odd funny line that they manage to squeeze under the radar. It's an inoffensive, relatively harmless way to spend 100 minutes. Just don't go expecting any major insights on love, life or karaoke, or you're likely to be disappointed. Massively. 5/10

I thought the plot was somewhat weak and the male character very unlikable. He seemed to be selfish throughout the film and remained so even in the end. I did not find myself cheering for a happy ending. The only character I did like was the struggling mother trying to make it as a singer, but that side story really had no parallels with the main plot. The rest of the story flowed in a very predictable manner and was quite unoriginal. After watching the movie, I felt like I had just wasted my time. I don't recommend watching it unless you have a profound love for British accents and that, that alone would satisfy your time in watching the movie.

I loved this film, managed to see it twice even though it is on very limited release in the UK (why??) Shaun Evans as Sam is totally believable as the charming ingenue who sleeps with the 'boss' in order to get a job. Amanda Ryan as Kate is less convincing and seems a little superficial (even though she tells Sam at one point that he is the one who is 'shallow'). Bob Hoskins and Lesley Manville provide the subplot superbly well, with a lot of humour. Anthony Head camps up his fun cameo as the gay lover. For me though it was Stockard Channing who stole the show - brilliant as Sheila, the hardened PR executive who, despite herself, finds herself falling in love with her young lover. The scene where Sam was finishing their affair, and then the scene at her brother's when she discovers who Sam is now sleeping with were both superb, with Stockard showing everything in her facial expressions and eyes. However, I did feel that at the end there was a scene missing - when everyone else was linked together happily, I felt there should have been a brief shot of Sheila - alone in her luxurious but unlived-in apartment, maybe reflecting on the loneliness of her life. I wish this film would come out on DVD, or at least be shown on TV so that I could record it, as I could definitely watch it more times.

It's a romantic comedy, but it's bland as hell as it just lacks story direction. There's many narrative problems -- for a start, Kate is presented as a strong, spiky lady at first (she's campaigning for the release of a wrongly imprisoned person as a sub plot), but then she's accepting of the main character sleeping with his mum and lying about it. Why? Because he gets her a toy dolphin. Not only is that pretty insulting to this films female audience, it's insulting to anybody who's ever had a meaningful relationship. For a romantic comedy to have those flaws is absolutely fatal, and it won't find a commercial audience because of that.Sam's character deserves a punch throughout the entire film - the audience won't like him due to his character journey (he tells his girlfriend he loves her, whilst lying about shagging her _mum_, in the space of 30 seconds). He goes from idiot, to idiot, in 90 minutes. We're defining lack of character journey in a motion picture, here.So, the male and female lead characters are idiots.Amusing, Bob Hoskins turns up near the end to smack Sam about - but the audience I saw it with laughed at the scene. I would have found it far more entertaining if Hoskins had beat him to a bloody pulp.Basically, if older men wrote and directed a romantic comedy, this would be what happens. And it is. Kate goes from being interesting to being a complete idiot of a character within the space of an hour, and it's a real shame. Kate's the worst representation of a protester I've seen in a movie pretty much ever, also, and it's something I found fairly insulting.Performance wise, Amanda Ryan is mostly great, Tony Head absolutely nails his part and Bob Hoskins is Bob Hoskins.The overall opinion I had from this is that they didn't want to another Love Actually, but at the same time they didn't have the balls to make anything meaningful in any other sense. Relationships are complicated and messy, people can be strong, individual and interesting; this is not that representation of life, love or people.