When you see the names Bill Nighy and Annette Bening on a film poster you think, well surely this will be good. Sadly, these two talented actors are not enough to save Hope Gap from being a bit dull. Not terrible, just a bit ho hum.
A British drama about a couple who’ve been married for nearly 30 years, Hope Gap never manages to make Edward’s (Nighy) decision to leave Grace (Bening) all that interesting. She doesn’t see it coming and is, understandably, thrown for a loop. Their son Jamie (Josh O’Connor - you might recognise him as one of the actors to play Prince Charles in the Netflix series The Crown) does add a slightly interesting divergence but apart from getting painfully stuck in the middle of his separating parents, that line through the film is never too interesting either.
Hope Gap is, at best, one to catch when it appears on your small screens in my view. Here’s a two star review in The Guardian if you’d like to read more about this one.
Hope Gap opens 9 April. It’s rated M and runs for 100 minutes. Trailer here.