''Military Wives'' is a 2019 British
comedy-drama film directed by
Peter Cattaneo
Peter Joseph Cattaneo MBE (born 1 July 1964) is a British filmmaker. He is most known for directing the comedy film ''The Full Monty'', for which he won the MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.
Life and career
Cattaneo was brought up in ...
, from a screenplay by Rosanne Flynn and Rachel Tunnard. It stars
Kristin Scott Thomas,
Sharon Horgan
Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is an Irish actress, writer, director, comedian and producer who co-wrote and starred in the comedy series '' Pulling'' (2006–2009) and ''Catastrophe'' (2015–2019). She also created the HBO comedy ...
and
Jason Flemyng
Jason Iain Flemyng''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for roles in British films such as ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' (1998) ...
. The film is inspired by the true story of the
Military Wives Choirs, a network of 75 choirs in British military bases across the United Kingdom and overseas, featured in the fourth season of the British documentary television series ''
The Choir''.
The film had its world premiere at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
on 6 September 2019 and was released in the United Kingdom on 6 March 2020 by
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...
.
Synopsis
With their partners away serving in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, a group of women on the home front form a choir and quickly find themselves at the centre of a media sensation and global movement.
Cast
*
Kristin Scott Thomas as Kate
*
Sharon Horgan
Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is an Irish actress, writer, director, comedian and producer who co-wrote and starred in the comedy series '' Pulling'' (2006–2009) and ''Catastrophe'' (2015–2019). She also created the HBO comedy ...
as Lisa
*
Jason Flemyng
Jason Iain Flemyng''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for roles in British films such as ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'' (1998) ...
as Crooks
*
Greg Wise
Matthew Gregory Wise, born 1966, is an English actor and producer. He has appeared in several British television programmes and feature films. He played the role of John Willoughby in '' Sense and Sensibility'', which also starred Emma Thompson, ...
as Richard
*
Emma Lowndes as Annie
* Gaby French as Jess
*
Lara Rossi as Ruby
*
Amy James-Kelly
Amy James-Kelly (born 15 November 1995) is a British actress. She gained prominence through her role as Maddie Heath in the ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'' (2013–2015). She has since starred in the Netflix series ''Safe'' (2018) and t ...
as Sarah
*
India Ria Amarteifio as Frankie
*
Laura Checkley
Laura Checkley is an English actress and comedian known for playing the regular character Louise throughout three series of ''Detectorists'' on BBC Four, Monica in '' Action Team'' on ITV2, Terri King, wife of the titular character played by Tom ...
as Maz
*
Sophie Dix
Sophie Dix (born 3 March 1969) is an English actress, best known for her role as Captain Sadie Williams in ''Soldier Soldier''. She has also had roles in ''The Bill'', ''Benidorm'', '' Between The Lines'', and ''Holby City''. In March 2022, she ...
as Beatrice
* Beverley Longhurst as Hilary
* Jack James Ryan as Private Shaw
* Karen Sampford as Choir Member
*
Robbie Gee
Robbie Gee (born 24 March 1970) is a British actor, best known for his ''Desmond's'' character "Lee Stanley", for appearing in Guy Ritchie's crime caper '' Snatch'', and for his comedy roles in TV series like ''The Real McCoy'' and '' The Crou ...
as Red
Production
In September 2018, it was announced
Kristin Scott Thomas and
Sharon Horgan
Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is an Irish actress, writer, director, comedian and producer who co-wrote and starred in the comedy series '' Pulling'' (2006–2009) and ''Catastrophe'' (2015–2019). She also created the HBO comedy ...
had joined the cast of the film, with
Peter Cattaneo
Peter Joseph Cattaneo MBE (born 1 July 1964) is a British filmmaker. He is most known for directing the comedy film ''The Full Monty'', for which he won the MTV Movie Award for Best New Filmmaker.
Life and career
Cattaneo was brought up in ...
directing, from a screenplay by Rosanne Flynn and Rachel Tunnard, with
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...
distributing in the United Kingdom.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
on 6 September 2019. Shortly after,
Bleecker Street acquired US distribution rights to the film. It was released in the United Kingdom on 6 March 2020 and was scheduled to be released in the United States on 27 March. However, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, it was rescheduled to 22 May 2020, where the film will be released on
video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...
instead of a planned theatrical release.
Reception
On the aggregator site
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of , based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads: "Like a favourite song you know by heart, ''Military Wives'' offers few surprises – but its pleasures are no less formidable by their familiarity." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' called it a "crowd-pleasing comedy-drama" that "hits all the right notes".
Richard Lawson of ''
Vanity Fair'' praised the performances of Scott Thomas and Horgan, writing "Scott Thomas sells the film, and the sorrow at its heart, way better than everything else around her", but noted the film feels "hurried and thin".
References
External links
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*
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{{Peter Cattaneo
2019 films
2019 comedy-drama films
British comedy-drama films
British female buddy films
British musical comedy-drama films
Films about the British Army
Films directed by Peter Cattaneo
Films scored by Lorne Balfe
Films about grieving
Lionsgate films
2010s female buddy films
2010s English-language films
2010s British films