This lovely and humorous little production of a classic tale really made my Saturday night, I came out both invigorated and satisfied. I chuckled and tutted (at the characters) along with the whole audience, and I could feel others tapping their feet along, or really enjoying the music.
Gregor Fisher proves himself a masterful comedic character actor again, playing a grumpy but wily father and postmaster in the lead role. Eddie Izzard deserves commendation for given depth to a character screaming to be either played as an outright fool, or as a serious and glum two dimensional character. The rest of the cast are fantastic and skillfully directed.
Overall I would recommend this movie to any lovers of independent feel good movies, it definitely reminded me of how I felt upon leaving a screening of Amelie years ago. Very family friendly, and an ideal antithesis to the stream of ridiculous Hollywood action movies of the Fast and furious 8, triple x ilk.
And regarding people saying it didn't need to be remade, how preposterous to review a production this way. Stories are retold constantly, its the nature of the beast. One of the beautiful things about the cinema and theatre is the diversity in which a simple tale can be re-imagined, bring it to life in new ways. I can only assume this opinion come from purists who love the original so much they would hate to see anything even slightly different, so any real opinion on this production is unbelievably biased.
I never give 10/10, because I would reserve that for such amazing pieces of cinema like the Godfather and alike. So understand 9/10 is a very good score.
