Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Neil Welch Emily (Diane Keaton) has adjusted to being widowed a year ago in all respects other than financially. She is trying to keep her poor finances a secret from the other residents of the upmarket apartment house she lives in when she encounters Donald (Brendan Gleeson), known locally as The Tramp, who lives in a shack built from scrap in thr grounds of a long-demolished hospital. Donald happily keeps himself to himself and makes to demands on anyone, but the owners of the site have served an eviction notice on him so that they can redevelop the site. Donald's instinctive reaction is aggressive bluster, because he doesn't know what else to do. And so Emily starts helping him to obtain Adverse Possession (Squatters Rights). Which doesn't go down well in her social circle.Hampstead is an affluent, upper-middle class area of north London which is mildly snobbish and, paradoxically, under the impression that it isn't, and this underlies the humour in this fanciful geriatric romance, based on a real-life case of someone who had made his home on a forgotten, but ultimately valuable, plot of land.Hampstead is photographed very prettily. Diane Keaton has a little more substance than in her last couple of outings, and Brendan Gleeson does comedy as well as he ever has: he doesn't get too much opportunity for comedy usually, which is a shame.Jason Watkins, as usual, steals every scene he is in.Real life, I suspect, had little in the way of romance accompanying the legal issues whereas the fate of the two ill-matched lovers is the raisin d'etre for the movie. And that's fine. The resolution is a bit too glib but, otherwise, this is very gentle and likeable.

Ian I love Diane Keaton and I love Brendan Gleeson so I really wanted to love this. It's sort of ok.It tries to be a kind of Notting Hill RomCom but without the twists and funnies. There are stereotypes all over the place and a predictable plot and it drags a bit, particularly near the beginning.But it's an easy watch, mainly thanks to the two stars, but it would have been so much better with a better script. Admittedly it was based on true-life events but someone should tell the scriptwriter that true does not always equal interesting.

muchiemix That lazy evening, when you just wanna cozy up, and share some giggles, this will do. A decent story, with a good cast.

Paul Guest Superficially this film looks like a cross between 'Notting Hill' (for older people) and 'The Lady in the Van'. Below the surface, however, it is surprisingly substantial and even has some political implications.I'd been expecting to like it simply for its local colour, which indeed is quite plentiful. Apart from the Heath, there are shots of Hampstead High Street, Flask Walk, some side roads and courts, and even (briefly) the 18th-century painter George Romney's house on Holly Bush Hill.The film has been accused of making Hampstead look permanently sunny. In fact, when Emily Walters (Diane Keaton) first appears there is heavy rain outside. Admittedly the weather brightens by the time she befriends Donald Horner (Brendan Gleeson). These, then, may be examples of the pathetic fallacy, or may not.Emily first sees Donald, symbolically, from a distance while surveying the local area with binoculars. The relationship between them develops in a fairly complex way. This is dramatically satisfying, and so is the underlying tension between Emily and Fiona (Lesley Manville), hypocritical cheerleader of Emily's fellow residents. When Emily eventually loses patience with her, she reveals a steely side beneath her previous passivity.In siding with Donald against the odious snobs in her block of flats, she certainly isn't passive. They are both outsiders: she as an American widow faced with finding a smaller home, he with his shack on the Heath. Though severely stigmatised by the local snobs, he is quite harmless. As he says, "I've always gone out of my way to keep out of the way." This is a plea to 'live and let live' and thus for tolerance. He scores a surprising victory in the end, though, in fighting for his home – like the late Harry Hallowes, the 'hermit' of Hampstead Heath on whom he is modelled.Some critics seem to have thought the role of Donald unworthy of Brendan Gleeson. The actor, however, clearly respected his role and took it seriously. He "liked the idea that in a 'fairy tale love story' there was still room to consider vital issues over ownership of land, house prices and whether it is possible to live outside what society considers 'normal' today." And he remarks, "The idea of providing or withdrawing shelter from someone in order to make money is just a crazy way of living." islingtontribune.com/article/brendan-gleeson-on-a-heath-fairy-tale Gleeson does point out one limitation to the film: "There had to be an element of antisepticness applied when we made (Donald's) home – we couldn't make it like Harry's, really." Even so, it is truly shocking to see, at one point, that his home has been vandalised.Sadly, James Norton's role as Emily's son Philip isn't so worthy of him. Philip seems to serve no real purpose, except for disapproving of his mother's plans. He plays a slightly comic role in one brief scene, when Donald suddenly appears before him and Emily just after having a bath. This, however, looks suspiciously similar to Spike's (Rhys Ifans) shock appearance before the paparazzi in 'Notting Hill'.So Norton is under-used but Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson and Lesley Manville all give strong and memorable performances. It's too easy to sneer at 'Hampstead'. One reviewer calls it a "ghastly faux-mance" and remarks that the musical score "sounds like it was ripped from a feature-length insurance ad." I think the film and the score deserve better.