A GRAND ROMANTIC GESTURE – a film by Joan Carr-Wiggin – SPOILERS

Ros with phallic pottery

What if Romeo and Juliet had met, not in their early teens, but much later in life? After uncomfortably watching his girlfriend play Juliet, director Dylan (Gregory Calderone) decides to re-imagine the entire play, casting newly-retired Ava, whom he has hijacked from a nearby cooking class, and nearly-retired Simon, who in his salad days had one lone onstage triumph as Hamlet, as the leads. (The post title is the second line Ava says in the film, because her first experience of Simon was the sound of him practicing Hamlet’s soliloquy.)

Lizzie (Alice Moran) intentionally bumps into Ava and Simon who are following her because they think she and Jeremy are having an affair.

The story of Ava and Simon is also a re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet, with Ava’s family representing the Capulets, and Simon’s wife Ros (Linda Kash) putting forward the perspective of the Montagues. (In an aside, Ros – probably short for Rosaline – quotes from Edith Wharton’s short story THE LAST ASSET: “There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there’s only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have a fairly good time.”) Ros is taking a pottery class and has encouraged her husband into an acting class so he will spend less time in the house. Later she will have an apparently brief flirtation with shoplifting.

Lori (Shauna Black) tells Ava (Gina McKee) that she should love her ingredients and to stir more gently. Ava leaves the class shortly after.

Ava (Gina McKee) is an intense woman who can best be described as a mild-mannered version of Fiona Shaw’s character Carolyn on KILLING EVE. Simon (Douglas Hodge)did enjoy being an actor but didn’t pursue it as a career because, as he explains to Ada: “Acting isn’t for real people, like us.” Simon’s life begins to merge with the play, and when called upon to give Jeremy advice, he effectively becomes Friar Laurence, and when his relationship with Ada is threatened, Romeo’s suicidal streak emerges, but he gets over it. The point of him seems to be that he can (and will) play whatever role he is given.

Jeremy (Dylan Llewellyn) and Debra (Rose Reynolds) — Reynolds also co-stars with Aaron Cobham in Todor Chapkanov’s body swap romantic comedy I’M WITH ME

Ava’s family members are portrayed as Ava sees them. Her husband Matthew (Rob Stewart) is a pleasant but passionless person who smiles a lot. Daughter Debra (Rose Reynolds) is incredibly perky and is married to Jeremy (Dylan Llewellyn), who seems not too bright, and whose secret dream is to be a puppeteer. (This for some reason seems regarded as an unworthy ambition.) Debra and Jeremy appear to be recapitulating the mistakes of their parents, at least as Ava sees it, and Ava doesn’t want them to, but the two young’uns might be more clever than Ava thinks. They arrive in the middle of the night, claiming they were robbed and that most of their stuff was stolen. Later in the film, Debra suggests that the two of them move in with Ava and Matthew, so it seems possible that they made up the whole robbery thing, hoping to be invited to do that.

Matthew points out the benefits of retirement to a skeptical Ava

Though she tells Simon she loved her job, the loss of it is not the cause of Ava’s unhappiness. If she wanted to continue as a microbiologist, surely someone would hire her, because she has a PhD and many years of experience. The true source of her dissatisfaction becomes apparent when she asks Matthew: “How Would you feel if you lost your job and your career?”, and he tells her: “Well, not great, obviously, but I try to look at the bright side. Look at all the new things opening up for you. Hobbies, afternoon naps, new friends. Soon you’ll be going out for coffee with the gals and trading cookie recipes.”