Emma Payne

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After switching on the subtitles so that I could hear and understand what the characters were saying, I found the film mildly entertaining and persisted with it until the end. Although I did not warm to any of the characters: the sister, Emerald, is incredibly selfish with a right attitude and talks so fast; the brother, OJ, is devoid of any emotion but thankfully is a man of few words, I was compelled to watch because of concern for the horses. I wanted to know if Lucky would make it. (I won't give any spoilers!) At the end of the film, I felt mainly confusion and had many unanswered questions: What had I just watched? What was the business with the TV monkey all about and what was its relevance to the plot? Why the hell did 'Holst' just go off with his camera at the end?... and how on earth did Emerald sew all those 'waving men' in such a short time? Was it something that we missed in the first 15 minutes as we were struggling to understand without the subtitles? I doubt it. I think it's deliberately done that way. After a bit of googling to get my answers, I read that the director wanted to explore the genre and the themes of spectacle, danger and fame. Whether deliberate or not, the characters were very two-dimensional and not very believable. It said it was a comedy. I only laughed once, when 'Holst' suggested they use the horses as bait and Angel said "Nah! Horse People." I don't think that was an intentional joke. Anyway, maybe I'm uncultured or of too low intellect 'to get it' but I just came away feeling confused, irritated that I'd lost over 2 hours of my life watching this film.

I feel bad leaving a negative review but feel a bit duped by all the rave reviews and recommendations from friends so felt the reviews needed balancing. Firstly, I am the kind of person who always reads a book/watches a film to the bitter end even if I’m not enjoying it that much. I can’t remember the last time that I didn’t finish a book. Secondly I was looking forward to reading this as we have walked quite a bit of the sw coastal path over the years and was hoping it would bring back some memories. However I could not continue with this book. I stopped while they were on their ‘new age hippy jaunt’ in Glastonbury before they even begun walking the salt path! Several reasons for this. 1. The author who is in this case the narrator comes across as a complete snob. The whole first part of the book has been written to evoke sympathy from the reader about their predicament which I agree, must have been awful for them but it just doesn’t wash. Heaven forbid they end up in a nearby council house. She shows little sympathy for the homeless person in Glastonbury, suggesting maybe he’s not homeless and begging is a ‘lucrative career’ I’m sure all homeless people have their own sad backstories… they just maybe don’t possess the literary know how or move in the right social circles to get their stories published. 2. Criticising authors of other guide books just seemed to be a bit below the belt! 3. A few of the events in the story so far already seemed a bit made up and not plausible. Two 50 something year olds… one of whom has a shoulder he can’t use and can’t even put on a rucksack at the start… digging a hole to bury a sheep…. In June. I have experience of digging holes for animals so know first hand how difficult this is. If this were a work of fiction, I could forgive it but I’m afraid this has been left in the hotel library as I don’t want it to take up weight in my luggage on the way home. Maybe there’s a daily mail reader at the hotel that will love to read it and I can question my friendship with the ‘friends’ who recommended this book! 😂