EIFF 2013: A Long Way from Home

Among things a young woman never wants to hear from a septuagenarian male acquaintance, “You can come over and use our pool any time” ranks highly. Exactly the reason face-curdling moments of geriatric longing drag A Long Way from Home below the gentle musing on expat life it might have been into a mire of embarrassment.

Hangdog Joseph (Fox) and wife Brenda (Fricker) are locked in a humdrum retirement of daily crosswords and croissants in the south of France. When smarmy Mark (Nicholls) and his dewily stunning partner Suzanne (Dormer) cross their paths in a restaurant, Joe perks up like he’s tanned a bin-full of Viagra. Rather than being disturbed, Suzanne returns his lingering looks with befuddling affection that is probably supposed to be filial. If this isn’t worrying enough, as they stroll arm in arm through a magnificent sunset-drenched vineyard, she expresses sympathy for his life without a smirk of irony. Which means if little else, this film is a perfect articulation of the term ‘first world problem’.