Ewan McGregor, Tom Hardy and Sophie Okonedo are big names doing small roles in this pleasant 2006 portmanteau film
This relatively low-budget
British multi-stranded romantic
comedy from 2006 is getting a rerelease this week. There’s no obvious reason why it should be trotted out now, especially since it’s such a summery story set in Hampstead Heath on a cloudless day, but it’s a pleasant enough way to pass the time.
The nimbly constructed plot, by TV writer Aschlin Ditta, posits a constellation of couples perambulating about the north
London heathland who mostly pass each other by glancingly during their own specific interactions. Some vignettes are daft or feel embarrassingly dated, like the one that features Andrew Lincoln as a married bloke who gets caught by his wife (Holly Aird) leering at a French woman (the marvellously named Eglantine Rembauville) sunbathing nearby. Likewise, the segments featuring Adrian Lester struggling to find somewhere to pee where he won’t get hit on by a gay man lurking in the bushes, and Tom Hardy sexually harassing strangers such as Sophie Okonedo have not aged well.