Goodbye June and Christmas Day TV

 Goodbye June and Christmas Day TV.

There was a point during Goodbye June when you simply didn't want the film to end. What we had here was a movie, so smoothly polished, so beautifully moving and touching and utterly compulsive watching from beginning to the end, that you were transported to some special place where your heart and soul melts and swoons and never stops believing in the warm feelgood factor. 

Goodbye June marked the debut directorial role of Kate Winslet and her son Joe Anders for whom this had to be the most thrilling project he would ever complete. But Goodbye June was just a masterpiece, an exceptional piece of story telling and a masterclass. It restored your faith in humanity although you knew your family would always be with you, loyally and faithfully. Then you were suffused with a blanket of warmth, a duvet of snug satisfaction and ready to greet Christmas Day like a good old friend who would never desert you. 

Sometimes movies just get you right there, an emotional journey that seems to carry and sustain you from the first scene, the first words uttered on the screen and remain unstoppable because you really can't bottle these feelings. They are there on the silver screen next to your tub of  popcorn or hot dog, a delicious concoction of the sublime and ridiculous. Goodbye June was sublime in the extreme, an exquisite jewel, a sparkling diamond and the largest bowl of exotic fruits you could ever set eyes on. 

Of course in the old days, the traditional TV Christmas film would usually consist of a fifteenth showing of another James Bond film on Christmas Day, action and virile masculinity all the way. But if that wasn't in the TV listings then you would breathlessly anticipate the timelessly classical Wizard of Oz which seemed to be shown on Christmas Day every year since the the Battle of Hastings. We almost began to think that Judy Garland was some kind of Christmas angel at the top of our tree so familiar had she become. 

If memory serves you correctly, there was also the spectacular show that was Billy Smart's Circus at tea time on Christmas Day. In the years before political correctness, lions and elephants would be paraded around a circus ring as ringleaders kept cracking up a whip u to rouse an audience of parents and children who could hardly keep it all in, excitement unconfined.  

After the circus, the BBC had to be the essential choice of channel to watch. By now mum and dad, auntie and uncle would be deep in the middle of snoozeland, sleeping off the remnants of a lavish Christmas banquet of food, turkey, roast potatoes and Brussel sprouts still washing around their stomachs. And the kids were still racing in and out of the kitchen, back into the garden, sliding back onto their knees in a dining room that was now reminiscent of a toy and game battlefield and wrapping paper everywhere. 

And then there was Morecambe and Wise followed by The Two Ronnies, those inimitable comedic geniuses who were and remain your all time favourite comedy duos of all time. Morecambe and Wise were masterful funny men, capable of the most physical comedy and then resorting to that face to face opening where Eric would playfully slap Ernie on the face because both just loved each other's company. There was the Andre Previn playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order sketch as Eric, smartly dressed, would play a piano in a way that was totally unconventional. 

But yesterday my lovely wife Bev and I settled down to watch Goodbye June on Netflix with the most open of minds. The King's Speech had been delivered with a perfect weight and authority. We must hope that King Charles the Third is slowly making a full recovery from the debilitating effects of cancer and now the King stood most royally in the august setting of  Westminster Abbey. 

We now searched for Goodbye June, a film so cosy, heart warming, heartfelt and sentimentally gushing that somebody should have extended its duration on the screen for at least the rest of Christmas Day. We now absorbed a story that tugged so many heartstrings that somebody should have supplied a box of handkerchiefs to wipe away the tears. In the end you were almost watching the film with the quietest reverence, empathising and sympathising at the same time. You were won over instantly. 

Kate Winslet, first came to our attention in the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic. Winslet is the girl who fell deeply in love with Jack on board a luxury ship doomed to sink. In one of several iconic moments during the film, Winslet hung onto Leonardo DiCaprio with the tighest embrace and then looked on helplessly as Jack drowned and most of the audience were sobbing uncontrollably.

Now Winslet, as Julia, is the permanently stressed out but industrious daughter of Dame Helen Mirren whose character June is dying of cancer. There is an electrifying chemistry between Mirren and Winslet that is utterly compatible. Winslet is constantly at the end of her tether, juggling a thousand plates together as the hard pressed, downtrodden daughter who finds himself frantically multi tasking. Winslet rushes around, dropping kids off at school while overwhelmed with the presence of angst ridden sisters who just keep swearing and accusing each other of a complete lack of co-operation. 

Meanwhile, there is Dame Helen Mirren, a magisterial matriarch who now spends the entire film lying in a hospital bed, delaying the inevitable but cheerfully philosophical, resigned to her fate. Now Mirren does what Mirren does best, face gaunt and haggard and chatting amiably to her grandchildren and children as if determined to die with dignity. Mirren is almost as regal as the Queen she once acted so nobly, tenderly stroking the foreheads of her grandchildren and refusing to allow her family to just fall apart.

There was one scene in particular that tickled the funniest of bones. Sitting in the oncologist's room, Toni Collette, Helen in the film, confronts the medical surgeon with a machine gun of fruity four letter F words and expletives that simply highlighted her frustrations. Every time the doctor kept fiddling with his watch, Helen flew off the handle and poured out her anger. It was one of many innumerable amusing moments that made the film complete. 

There were cameo moments from comedian Stephen Merchant. But the one man who stole the show and once again re-asserted his legendary status was, of course, Timothy Spall who remains one of our most treasured of British actors. Spall, who is just magnificent in everything he turns his hand to, is Bernie, the awkward, slovenly and helpless husband of Dame Helen Mirren's June. By the end of the film, Bernie is at his wits end, wrestling helplessly with the realisation that his wife would die.

There is yet another memorable moment when, as Christmas dawns in the Hospice that Mirren was occupying for those final weeks, we saw the real beauty and immense versatility of Dame Helen Mirren.  A nativity play including the Baby Jesus is performed with much skilful aplomb and the whole family gather around the bed of their dying mother. And then Mirren peacefully passes away. Nana had lost her battle against cancer but most of us were just revelling in the splendour and majesty of Goodbye June. You have to reserve a festive afternoon for this Christmas cracker of a film and don't forget the hankies.