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The Nan Movie was filmed in 2019 for a 2020 release before pandemic lockdowns hit. It stars Catherine Tate as the character of Nan she created for her BBC TV sketch show almost twenty years ago, along with her co-star from the series of sketches, Mathew Horne who plays Nan’s grandson Jamie. The film, written by Tate and Ted Lasso‘s Brett Goldstein, was given no press previews, which is rarely a good sign. But it was why I am sat here typing this in Shepherd’s Bush Westfield shopping centre on a Friday afternoon, after just seeing the film in a Vue cinema. I did not wear a mask as, despite the massive The Nan Movie billboards outside, I was the only one in the room. I had my own private screening, and even moved to the premier seating bit which costs extra. Don’t tell the Vue, okay?
Josie Rourke is best known as a director for the stage, including stints as Artistic Director of London’s Bush Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse. She also directed the Oscar-nominated movie Mary Queen Of Scots in 2018. But her role as publicized role as director was not credited for the film, she is listed as an executive producer. No director is credited, this is just “A Catherine Tate Film.” So, going in I was anticipating a possible car crash. Why is there no director credited for the movie?
And what did I get? I got two very different films. One utterly excellent, the other a terrible atrocity for the eyes and ears. A little bit of history, Joan Taylor is a fictional character from The Catherine Tate Show on the BBC, created by Derren Litten and Catherine Tate in 2004, referred to mainly as Nan. A cockney-ish woman in her seventies or eighties, she is sweetness and light to all visitors and strangers, but the moment they leave she turns vicious and sweary, revealing what she really thinks of them, often in a highly bigoted fashion, exclaiming to her grandson “what a facking liberty!” at some perceived slight. It’s one joke, it’s a very good joke, with much variety, but how do you make that last a while film? Well, this is how.
Catherine Tate on the press circuit pitched this as an origin story, and that is where this film truly lights up. A period movie about two sisters growing up in war-torn London, in competition for the attention of American GI soldiers stationed there. And a story that divides them through competing desires, lies and loyalties as world history competes for their narrative. That story, told in flashback by Nan to Jamie, is sumptuous, beautiful, full of rich colours, light and dark, and challenging morality, a whole world away. It has pathos, it has drama, it has fully rounded characters. It is the best of times and may take up a good third of the film. And it plays out, convincingly, the events that led Nan to become the monstrous caricature she became. And hardly any of this is in the quite atrocious trailer. Behind every monster, there is a story of loss, of abuse, of suffering, and so it is with Joanie. The film takes a good while to get there, but get there it does.
But along the way, we get the rest of the film – of which the trailer is a pretty good representation. A road trip with Nan and her grandson who is bullying her into seeing her long-despised sister. It is tedious, boring, annoying, and offensive – not to social mores, but to the time the audience is spending watching it. A flat dull grey reality, which is only more obvious when compared with the considered, heart-breaking and beautifully shot, tale of Nan when young. Instead, we get a constant litany of her bodily functions, in and out, clubbing culture and a drugged-up Nan, joining Australian drinking crews and Irish terrorists. We also get the introduction of a nemesis for Nan hunting her down with no other reason than to extend the length of this film and which stretches to breaking point even the paper-thin reality upon which this movie coasts. Even an explosion fails to liven things up. The only thing that comes close are a number of intentionally shoddy animated sequences. Jamie is meant to be an amateur animator and the conceit is that this is how he sees certain scenes, as they play out. All mentions of him being an animator, however, happen when we can’t see the characters’ mouths moving, and I think they were added in post-production, and the photoshopped animated scenes added to fill in the bits that they ran out of budget for, to film. Or that they needed to do reshoots but could not. I should have checked if they got ReekGood to do it…
In fact, Jamie’s only real role in this film is to keep her moving and react to Nan in the same face that he does so well. A mixture of shock, impatience, disbelief, and a desire to just get on with things. Worked well in Gavin And Stacey. Martin Freeman did it well in The Office as well. They once had a sigh-off, I recall. Two decades on, he does it masterfully. The bigger mystery is why he never really snaps, or why he is duty-bound to this woman. That story probably deserves to be told more than this one. That doesn’t mean I want a sequel though, okay?
What led to there being no credited director on the film, I do not know. But this is a Catherine Tate film, and it always was. It’s not a great movie, but there is one hiding inside there, which is genuinely moving. It genuinely works as an extension of a sketch comedy character with one joke, turning that into a real, living, fleshed-out human being, with the insight that we should not judge others too harshly as we never know the true story of their lives. That is something that has run through Catherine Tate’s work and it is the saving grace of this film. It is also, of course, a lesson, that Nan has never, and will never, learn, What a facking liberty indeed.
If that had been the film, or even if it had been the majority of the film, this could have been a worthwhile and enjoyable journey through the human condition. Something to touch hearts and lives as well as provide a few laughs along the way. And I’ll be honest, there are a few. But just a few. Mostly around Jamie’s charity work with those with poor mental health, Nan’s acerbic mocking reaction to such a thing, and the genuine help they provide along the way. But this film much prefers to have Nan farting in Jamie’s face instead. And if I never hear anyone do a Shabooya Roll Call again it will be too, too soon,
The Nan Movie is in British and Irish cinemas today. Starring Catherine Tate, Mathew Horne, Katherine Parkinson and Pete Bennett, written by Catherine Tate and Brett Goldstein, and directed by… well who knows. There should be seats available.
The Nan Movie
Review by Rich Johnston
3/10
The Nan Movie is a terrible film with a much better film hiding inside it. And Catherine Tate should have made that film instead.
Actor/Writer
Catherine Tate
Actor
Katherine Parkinson
Executive Producer
Josie Rourke
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