With her brash assertiveness and bold effrontery, Arianda steals everything in sight.īut equally effective in her own way is Shirley Henderson as Hardy’s wife Lucille, a bird-like creature with a squeaky little voice whose tiny stature next to her hulking husband creates a constantly amusing disparity. Laurel’s wife is a force of Russian nature named Ida (Nina Arianda), a dyed-blonde whirlwind with less than zero tolerance for fools who seldom has a good word to say about anyone but always tends to the team’s welfare. Delfont (born Boris Winogradsky in Russia, brother of future tycoon Lew Grade and later to become Lord Delfont) proves slippery and evasive when it comes to money and support for the script Laurel is writing, Robin Hood.īut eventually the houses improve, and so does the film with the arrival of the comics’ wives as the boys prepare for their long-awaited two-week engagement in London. Much of the time, you feel like you’re beholding the real duo, so thoroughly conceived are the actors’ physicality and performances.Īrriving in England in 1953, the comics find themselves booked into less-than-deluxe accommodations at Newcastle, and their initial shows are sparsely attended. Outfitted with some extra padding and prosthetically enhanced with an ample double chin, Reilly excels at conveying the extreme politesse, exaggerated gestures, self-satisfied condescension and inevitable exasperation that were always part of the Hardy shtick. He seems an eminently decent and normal man whose expertise is playing a slow-witted simpleton.įor his part, Reilly is having a career-high year, with his outstanding dominant performance in Jacques Audiard’s Western The Sisters Brothers and now this wonderful turn, in which he all but disappears into the Hardy persona. Born, like Laurel, in Lancashire, England, Coogan is more conventionally good-looking than the man he’s playing, but he slips neatly into the role of the duo’s brains and writer. on a tour of live music-hall performances with the hope of launching a new movie with promoter/producer Bernard Delfont (Rufus Jones), whose abiding interest at the time was promoting the home-bred comedian Norman Wisdom.Įven for those well acquainted with the looks and behavior of the two performers, it takes no time at all to accept Coogan and Reilly as Laurel and Hardy. By the early 1950s, having been supplanted as the big screen’s kings of comedy by Abbott and Costello, the duo was nearly broke. But when they left Roach, their status declined, as plainly delineated at the beginning of Jeff Pope’s creditable but overly expository script. Working for producer Hal Roach from 1926-1940, the pair made dozens of shorts and 27 features.

Stan & ollie movie review