Ella and John Spencer (Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland) have kicked up their heels and headed off on a road trip in an old campervan called 'The Leisure Seeker', despite the grave concerns of their children. (The West Wing fans, the actress who plays Donna Moss is the daughter here and the son, well, he's pretty forgettable.)
Ella and John are battling cancer and dementia respectively and though it's not said explicitly, this is their last hurrah. They encounter various hiccups along the way, as you might expect. None of them are overly compelling and I confess I spent a lot of this film thinking it is definitely too long. Mirren's southern American accent disappears occasionally, leading me to wonder why she'd say yes to a film like this. I mean, she's Helen flippin' Mirren. I also couldn't shake the thought that she looks a bit like Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie in this...
The target audience of this film is more my parents than me but when I think about whether they'd like it, I suspect not.
The Leisure Seeker isn't terrible but it's also not great. Maybe 'watch at home on telly' good but not 'get a babysitter and drop $80 on a night out' good. To be fair, despite thinking it was a bit dull right throughout, I did shed a few tears at the end so it obviously drew me in to some degree!
The Sydney Morning Herald gave it 3.5 stars which is a bit too generous for me. I reckon it's more like 2 stars, as it was given by The Guardian.
Trailer here. In cinemas 14 June 2018. Rated M.