Billed as the road movie for the silver generation, ‘The Time of Their Lives’ stars Collins’ Joan and Pauline supported by ex-Italian stallion, Franco Nero. Clapped-out former screen goddess, Helen (played by Joan – no typecasting there then), hearing about the death of an old squeeze from her glory days, escapes the knacker’s yard, determined to ham it up at the funeral in France. Along the way, she picks up dowdy and downtrodden housewife Priscilla (Pauline) and the gray fugitives race côte à côte in a stolen Renault Captur. Franco Nero is the old stud in a battered 2CV with the hots for Pauline. There’s a full-frontal scene where he jumps naked into a pool. Now I know what perked up Vanessa Redgrave all those years ago when she played Guinevere to his considerable Lancelot in Camelot.
‘The Time of Their Lives’ has shades of ‘Thelma and Louise’ and ‘Shirley Valentine’ about it but, sadly, it’s not a patch on either. A tighter script and better lines would have helped. For us, the funniest moment came when the Norfolk broad in the row behind us dropped her gin – over her lap, over her seat and over her giggly companion. And with the best will in the world, Trump-loving ‘national treasure’, Joan, can’t match her fellow theatrical dames for pathos (or politics). Nevertheless, it was a charming excursion and diverting way to pass a Sunday afternoon.
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