Rent Allelujah (2022)

Typical British Comedy/Drama - Allelujah review by GI

A typically sweet British comedy drama set in a failing Yorkshire geriatric hospital. Adapted from an Alan Bennett play this has the witticisms that you'd expect from a Bennett inspired script and the well known cast are all on top form. The story is that this locally beloved hospital is scheduled for closure by the unfeeling bureaucrats in the Health Ministry because it's losing money. But a local campaign is underway to try and stop this. The staff led by the indomitable matron played by Jennifer Saunders rail against closure and the ignorance of the politicians who can't see beyond their spreadsheets. The patients are a collection of British stalwart actors such as Judy Dench and Derek Jacobi and who are played for laughs mostly by being curmudgeonly. It's Dench character, a retired librarian, who reveals a surprising plot twist that turns the film into a dark corner! But the focus of the film is around David Bradley's ex miner who exaggerates his illness in order to stay in the hospital rather than return to the care home he came from. He's visited by his son, Colin (Russell Tovey) who happens to be a Government mandarin and who is converted to the cause of people over money during the course of the film. Essentially this is an ode to the National Health Service and apart from the quite unpredictable twist the film follows a fairly obvious narrative arc. It's all pleasant and entertaining with several messages intermixed regarding death, the value of people even when old, the political ramifications of privatising the Heath Service etc etc and that's all wrapped up in a neat little film that probably worked better on the stage in some areas.

Uneven 'comedy' that leaves you bemused - Allelujah review by CB

"a warm, humourous, and deeply moving story" - I'm really not sure that's an accurate description. If I'd read the film's reviews online I might have been prepared for this bemusing (rather than amusing) film that leaves an 'Eh??!' at the end of it. The incredible acting talent represented by the cast is sadly underused. This is like no care home that I have ever been into (and I've been into a few). And the one character who seems more realistic (the head nurse) - well? what can you say? It fails to deliver on many levels. The Evening Standard's summary feels spot on: "a loving but unrealistic and ill-judged portrait of an NHS in crisis". Disappointing.

Disappointing - Allelujah review by JW

Chose this film largely based on cast. It was disappointing and it was sad to see such eminent actors perform to such a weak script. I appreciate there was a point but it was late in establishing and also unfair to the ordinary excellent staff that deal with the elderly.

I've given it 3 stars because of the cast but frankly it's a film that should never have been made.