LFF 2014: Queen and Country ***
For such a patriotic title, writer-director-producer John Boorman’s new period drama, Queen and Country is quite the anti-establishment film set in post-war, Fifties Britain. It goes about this in a rather delinquent fashion, highlighting the pomposity of hierarchy through its varied characters’ experiences.
The sequel to Boorman’s semi-autobiographical Hope and Glory (1987), Queen and Country sees a grown-up Bill Rohan (Callum Turner) drafted into the Army, where he meets and becomes best mates with the eccentric and free-willed Percy (Caleb Landry Jones). To pass time during their conscription, they battle with their snooty superiors and traditions, while chasing girls and finding love for Bill in the mesmerizing shape of the mysterious and melancholy Ophelia (Tamsin Egerton).
There is a great sense of spirit and fun to this drama that interestingly focuses on the feelings of youth still coming out of the shadows of World War Two. However, conflict is always looming, what with drafting young Brits – to young to serve in WWII – for the Korean War. Through Bill and Percy, you completely relate to the frustration of young lives placed on the line for a far away hierarchy.
Boorman does touch on the grim effects of war, but this is more about the institutionalized antics of two maturing men in very different ways. It’s a coming-of-age film, first and foremost that relies on our investment in the boys characters to roll with it, greatly supported by some wonderfully enjoyable performances from David Thewlis as the by-the-book Sgt. Major Bradley, Richard E. Grant as the ever-bothered Major Cross, Brían F. O’Byrne as the barking-mad RSM Digby, and Pat Shortt as a Dad’s Army-styled joker, Private Redmond.
Quite honestly, without these characters – and the ‘missing mess clock’ gag, the film would feel rather flat, even though Turner and Landry Jones make a fine pair of cads, and Egerton looks divine with ease. It is very theatrical in style, egged on by its high spirits – very much stamping a Boorman presence – but often tonally uneven it what it’s trying to achieve, almost a touch of Carry On in places (cue another naughty nurse episode like Barbara Windsor’s Nurse Susan Ball).
Queen and Country is far from a harrowing piece of film period drama that some might come to expect and very much a mixed bag of surprises – though poignant – that will leave some fulfilled and others wanting. It will make you laugh at the lunacy of old-school British etiquette that is still alive and kicking in certain institutions today.
3/5 stars
By @FilmGazer
