Rating of
2.5/4
Going ape
Bribaba - wrote on 05/04/11
There aren’t too many whimsical comedies with a Trotskyite sub text, so for that alone let us give thanks, but there’s a whole lot more to enjoy. Vanessa Redgrave, looking wonderful as the posh bird who dumps her eccentric husband in favour of stability, shows a real gift for light comedy, Karel Reisz’s direction is always inventive and makes good use of inserts from King Kong and Tarzan, and then there’s the world’s most wonderful couple: Arthur Mullard and Irene Handl. Warner’s performance as Morgan depends how you feel about children who refuse to grow up, though he does become more sympathetic eventually.
The Trotsky element comes from writer David Mercer, a renowned playwright and communist of the day and though class figures prominently in the film, it is never didactic. The screenplay is based on a TV play he'd written and in a unusual reversal of roles was watered down somewhat for the cinema. The ending turns into the full-blown surrealism that always threatened and there’s a great, almost-last line from the eponymous basket-case: “I’ve gone all furry”.
