CELEBRATING 70 YEARS! : THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES .. VERTIGO FILMS .. UK .. 2017 ..

 

VERTIGO FILMS

BRIGHT PICTURES

Presents

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES

Starring

JOAN COLLINS as Helen Shelly

PAULINE COLLINS as Priscilla

FRANCO NERO as Alberto

RONALD PICKUP as Frank

SIAN REEVES as Sarah

JOELY RICHARDSON as Lucy

MICHAEL BRANDON as Harry Scheider

ALLENE QUINCY as Ileana

RICHARD SYMS as Reg

WAYNE CATER as Coach Driver

MATILDA SHAPLAND as Eleanor

MARIE BORG as Sylvie

PASCAL HENAULT as Pianist

Written by Roger Goldby

Music by Stephen Warbeck

Executive Producer - Tim Rice Jonathan Shalit  Joan Collins Percy Gibson etc

Produced by Sarah Sulick & Azim Bolkiah

Directed by Roger Goldby 

(c) 2017 ..  UK .. 104 mins ... Color ..

Helen a fading Hollywood star who has been confined to a care home because of a bad hip vows to escape so she can attend an old boyfriends funeral. On the way she enlists the help of a downtrodden housewife Priscilla, who becomes her road buddy.

This 2017 film was a labour of love for Joan as she had spent a few years trying to get the project together and it was worth the wait. With a cast of interesting, quirky characters, Joan and Pauline Collins make a wonderful team and provide a memorable journey. 

Joan commented...

'' I based the character of Helen loosely on Debbie Reynolds, who was great beauty who had her share of lows in life. Even though my character is a bitter, twisted, rather nasty kind of person on the outside, underneath there is a sweet person to be found. When they were casting Priscilla, one person who absolutely jumped out at me from the pages was Pauline, who I admire tremendously as an actress and we have known each other many years.''

Joan on set with Joely Richardson.

 Roger Golby, director of The Time of Their Lives 

What makes it so special?

First and foremost the main characters, who are the perfect odd couple. These two very different women come together by chance, go on an incredible journey, change each other, and end up as true friends. It's a warm, uplifting tale of two strong, mature female characters that people can identify with - and how they break free. I hope audiences find it funny too of course!

You wrote The Time of Their Lives. What inspired the story?

I've always been drawn to stories about older people. I suppose in a way it was inspired by my grandmothers and great aunt. These were three older women who were really important in my life. They showed me that older people can still to do things, still change, and are perfectly capable of going on an adventure.

Was it a coup to get Joan and Pauline for the film?

Absolutely. A film like this is made or broken by the cast. Joan is a legend, but she also has incredible depth of performance and real charisma. When I first met her and she agreed to do the film, we talked about the role of Priscilla. I had Pauline in mind to play the part, and it was also Joan's first suggestion.
They already knew each other and have a chemistry, a shorthand if you like, that transfers to the screen. They are very different people, but both are incredibly versatile and hard-working. Hilarious too. Franco Nero is a big Italian star and he was a real gentleman. A joy to work with.

Is there a message in this film?

I guess it's something as simple as: it's never too late to change and live bravely, with hope.

And was Ȋle de Ré an ideal location for an escape?

Pauline's character needs to get away, go somewhere different. When you go somewhere different it enables you to change and this contrast helps Priscilla come out of herself. France is a beautiful country throughout, but my producer Sarah Sulick recommended Ȋle de Ré in particular.
It's a little like Nantucket, with a lovely atmosphere to it, beautiful landscapes, old churches and abbeys, and people riding bicycles everywhere. Lovely little harbours too and a connection with movie stars and media people - lots go there for their holidays. I suppose it could've been St Tropez, but Ȋle de Ré was just perfect.

Executive Producer Tim Rice...

'' One of the aspects of this film that particularly appealed to me, as a former student at La Sorbonne in Paris is the use of several wonderful 60's French pop hits by artists such as Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Jacques Dutronce and Francoise Hardy.''

Joan sings 'Who Can I Turn To?

Producer Sarah Sulick...

''The film draws on both the ongoing popularity of buddy movies and the publics growing appetite for poignant comedies led by a more mature cast.''

Joan, Pauline & Franco Nero on set

Review Variety ..

By Guy Lodget

There is nothing like a dame, and Dame Joan Collins is still nothing like one — not by the Queen’s definition of the term, at least. Yet with the British honours system having finally smiled on her, she has belatedly decided to emulate Dame Judi, Dame Maggie and the “Best Exotic” club with a respectably genteel geriatric comedy of her own. Enter “The Time of Their Lives,” a likably lame rattletrap of a road movie that gets what limited spark it has from the “Dynasty” diva’s still-lascivious on-screen charisma. 

As a pair of lonely pensioners thrown together by chance on an episodic Gallic escapade, the strutting star is agreeably paired up with long-neglected namesake Pauline Collins; Roger Goldby’s narratively lumpy film shamelessly cribs from the latter’s Oscar-nominated breakout “Shirley Valentine” in espousing the life-enhancing virtues of a little sun, a little wine and a little swarthy Continental sex, but remains, from the script down, a strictly economy-class affair. Goldby’s film does, however, prove that both Collins's should have been better used over the years, even as it slightly misuses them itself. Joan, in particular, deploys some peppery comic timing and a salty sense of self-parody to season the otherwise vague character of Helen Shelley, a Sixties screen siren whose former days of debauchery have left her penniless, family-free and in a state care home. When she learns that the successful director of her biggest hit has died, she resolves to get to Ile de Ré for the funeral by hook or (mostly) by crook, desperate to regain the industry contacts that could revive her career. “It’ll be like the Academy Awards,” she reasons. “A bit sadder, but not much.”

Playing attentively to type as Priscilla, a downtrodden middle-England housewife, Pauline Collins gets the more cohesive backstory of the two — the already obvious details of which are teased out through needless narrative contrivance. Stranded for decades in a through-the-motions marriage to a loveless old stiff (Ronald Pickup) who continually blames her for the death of their young son, she’s understandably loath to amend the error when an implausible misunderstanding places her on a beach-bound tour bus with Helen and her fellow institutional inmates. That she’s swiftly befriended and wheedled by Helen into joining her on a law-breaking cross-Channel jaunt is a greater stretch still; Goldby’s nominally original screenplay demands great bounding leaps of credulity from its audience, even as its own rate of movement rarely exceeds a lumbago-slowed shuffle.

Once in France, the film finds moderately surer footing, with dewily lit coastal scenery at least providing a salubrious backdrop to the stars’ repetitive squabbling and low-energy banter. (James Aspinall’s artificially sunny lensing is bright enough to render the hyper-perky machinations of Stephen Warbeck’s score overkill — though a cheery, film-within-a-film theme song, written by executive producer Tim Rice, is a cute detail.) As a wealthy, ponytailed Italian artist who rescues the women when their car and screenplay alike run out of gas, Franco Nero shows up mostly to let the hemmed-in Pauline Collins replay her “Shirley Valentine” blossoming, though his most vivid contribution to proceedings is the year’s most unexpected full-frontal shot — you won’t find that in “The Lady in the Van,” folks. With due respect to Nero’s manhood, however, Joan Collins remains the film’s most sizable asset, whether flicking off insults and sucking on cigarettes with imperious, eye-rolling hauteur, or bringing a shoulder-padded soap star’s quivering conviction to some late-in-the-game funereal melodrama. Her dramatic gifts and flair for diva-tude converge most effectively in an out-of-nowhere musical number that sees her touchingly croon a Leslie Bricusse-Anthony Newley standard from her own salad days. “Who can I turn to when nobody needs me?” she sings — though one suspects the dame can sustain herself rather better than this sweet, rickety film.

You can still pick up a copy on blu-ray at the following link...

BUY THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES HERE!