Category Archives: Chance Encounter

When I’m 64 (2004)

From Amazon;

When widowed cabbie Ray and retired teacher Jim meet by chance, they discover they long for the same things from life: adventure, challenge and love. Together Ray and Jim discover that being 64 means a new beginning: it’s time to try the things they never dared in their youth.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 27 minute complete British film.

Paul Freeman, who plays Ray,  is one of those supporting British actors you seem to have seen everywhere but just cannot place. If it helps, in “Monarch of the Glen” he played Andrew Booth. His resume is enormous.  Ray exudes a restless, vigorous, energy overshadowed by events in his past.

No less impressive is the resume of Alun Armstrong, who plays Jim. Jim’s character is sadder as a man who attended a school and then stayed on for the rest of his working life, Now he leaves that part of his life full of regret that he has never really lived.  He feels duty bound to go back home and care for his ailing, elderly father. But the father wants Jim to move on.

As a realistic British drama with wonderful acting, DO NOT MISS!

Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006)

From IMDB:

Sex and love. Some seek it, some need it, some spurn it, and some pay for it, but we’re all involved in it. Set on one afternoon on Hampstead Heath, London, this movie investigates the minutiae of seven couples. What makes us tick?

From Amazon Prime:

This British comedy stars an incredible home-grown cast including Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road), Ewan McGregor, (Trainspotting), Catherine Tate (Doctor Who), Mark Strong (1917), Hugh Bonneville (Notting Hill), Andrew Lincoln (Love Actually) and Adrian Lester (The Day After Tomorrow). On the lush green lawns of London’s Hampstead Heath, a variety of couples sort through their romantic dilemmas.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 32 minute British film.

There are comedic moments to be sure, but not all the discussions are funny.  Note the emphasis on “discussion” because this is a talking-heads film.  At first I thought “this is going to be boring.” But something about the script and the acting and the well-known actors kept my attention throughout.   Ewan McGregor and his film partner play a gay couple discussing whether to have a baby. Eileen Atkins and Benjamin Whitrow play a pair of elderly strangers who meet accidentally and make an amazing discovery. And so it goes.

Somehow this slow day in Hampstead Heath was a pleasant, easy watch.