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ON A CLEAR DAY
Directed by: Gaby Dellal.
Produced by: Sarah Curtis & Dorothy Berwin.
Written by: Alex Rose.
Director of Photography: David Johnson.
Edited by: Robin Sales.
Music by: Stephen Warbeck.
Released by: Focus.
Country of Origin: UK. 99 min. Rated: PG-13.
With: Peter Mullan, Brenda Blethyn, Sean McGinley, Billy Boyd, Benedict Wong, Ron Cook & Jamie Sives.

Frank (Peter Mullan) has never stopped blaming himself for his firstborn son’s drowning. Isolating himself from his wife and his other son, he became an accomplished shipbuilder engineer in Glasgow to do right by his son’s death in the most poetic fashion possible. But being fired after all these years reopens old wounds. It takes his unlikely dream of swimming the English Channel to France for Frank, his family, and his motley crew of friends to learn the value of emotional support.

While it does reach a level of sentimentality usually reserved for Christmas pageants and hometown productions of Rent, On a Clear Day always feels grounded. This has almost everything to do with its two veteran leads, Peter Mullan and Brenda Blethyn, who plays Frank’s wife Joan. Mullan has Henry Fonda’s knack for expressing pools of anxieties and desires with little more than his eyes, and Blethyn has made a truly exceptional career out of playing housewives who reach a boiling point in their middling lives. Both lend a graceful tone to a cast of quirky characters whose own lifelong obstacles broadly range from jealousy and racism to not getting the girl and a fear of water.

There are more than a few hilarious moments, but it’s how believable Frank’s pain is conveyed that makes the film so relatable. His inability to overcome or even express his grief as a proud working-class man is perfectly reflected in Joan’s own discomfort and their son Rob’s (Jamie Sives) repressed pain. Gary Dellal’s camera follows his characters into frames that quake with loneliness, as if communication is always just out of reach. Well written, well acted, and all-around well made, this is not your average film where middle-aged British folk rediscover the meaning of friendship and sharing (Waking Ned Devine, to name one) – it’s the vanguard of the genre. Zachary Jones
April 7, 2006