What We Did on Our Holiday - Feel good fun (if you’re in the mood)

Aw, how sweet.  I think I said that pretty much every two minutes during ‘What We Did On Our Holiday’s’ ninety minute runtime.  Yes, it’s a ‘nice’ film.  It deals with family drama where a young couple (ex Dr Who David Tennant and ex Bond girl Rosamund Pike) who are in the process of getting divorced, take their three children (all with various degrees of psychosis) on a family holiday to Scotland for cancer-stricken Grandad’s (Billy Connoly) birthday.  During their stay many skeletons get uncovered and truths get dragged to the surface.

Yet, despite the ‘adult themes’ of death and relationships, it’s actually weighted towards the children, all of which are largely just going through the adult scenarios in their own childlike ways.  Like I say – sweet.

Sometimes, when a film has children in prominent roles, they can make or break it.  There’s nothing worse than a ‘wooden’ child actor doing his best to bleat his lines with absolutely zero emotion or understanding of what he’s going.  At least here the kids’ performances come across as realistic, making the whole film watchable.

Plus, despite being ‘sweet’ you never feel that it’s ‘sickeningly sweet’ and too ‘nicey-wicey’ which it could stray into if it wasn’t careful.

Overall, the film is good enough, but you have to be in the mood for ‘sweet.’ If you’re looking for ‘dark and depressing’ this one is definitely not for you.  It’s a nice, gentle  movie which you can sort of have on in the background and still get what’s happening (and the jokes).

About the only thing I didn’t agree with was how sunny it appeared to be in Scotland.  It wasn’t like that any time I’d been there (or maybe I just went on the wrong week!).

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that