Familiarity breeds
contempt—albeit a mild strain—in How About You, a genteel UK
serio-comedy about colorful-but-difficult old folks, in the vein of squishy
crowd-pleasers like Calendar Girls and Venus. Hayley Atwell plays a headstrong but
rootless young woman who asks her sister Orla Brady if she can crash at the
family-owned retirement home for a while, then ends up in charge when Brady is
called away over the Christmas holiday. Stuck babysitting four cantankerous
residents—Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton, Brenda Fricker, and Joss
Ackland—Atwell decides to ditch the detached professionalism her sister
prizes and instead treat her charges as one big dysfunctional family, forcing
everyone to engage with each other and appreciate the yuletide. Rowdiness, reconciliation,
and renewal ensue.
Director Anthony Byrne keeps the
story moving apace, and he's helped considerably by a cast that knows how to
invest clichés with real humanity. Still, nothing in How About You is the least bit surprising; the film hits its marks
with dreary precision. It begins with Atwell looking hapless, regularly scolded
by Brady. It introduces the impossible oldsters, who drink and swear and snipe
in ways meant to be loveably comic. Then, through the careful application of
tough love and naughtiness—including the requisite
pot-smoking—everything turns around, and Brady comes to see that Atwell
isn't such a loser after all. Throw in a wall-to-wall soundtrack of lilting
woodwinds and an "Adapted from a short story by Maeve Binchy" credit, and
arthouse bookings follow, like mildew on a wet carpet.