Fisherman’s Friends is an amiable and upbeat British comedy with a flavour of Ealing Studios and The Full Monty about it. A cynical London music executive reluctantly heads to Cornwall on a colleague’s stag weekend where he’s pranked into trying to sign a group of shanty-singing fishermen. Ten fisherman are signed by Universal Records and achieve a top ten hit with their debut album.
Jeanne Herry crafts a story stemming from a delicate two-and-a-half-month state of limbo for a newborn child, Théo, who becomes a ward of the state after his mother gives him up for adoption at birth. In Safe Hands choreographs parallel strands of action: the search for potential parents undertaken by the social workers managing Théo's case, the care and vigilance required for Théo's foster father to properly nurture him in the interim, and the nine-year journey of adoption applications and fractured marriage embarked upon by a possible mother.
Mrs Lowry & Son depicts the relationship between L.S. Lowry, one of Britain's most iconic artists, and his mother Elizabeth, with whom he lived until her death. Spall plays Lowry and Redgrave his overbearing mother.
The overall rating for each film is calculated by applying the following weightings to the audience's responses: Excellent - 1; Very Good - 0.75; Good - 0.5; Poor - 0.25; and Awful - 0. The sum of the weighted scores is then expressed as a percentage of the total number of responses.