Navy veteran Bernard Jordan (Michael Caine) missed the boat when it came to applying to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings. But, encouraged by his wife, Rene (the late Glenda Jackson in her final role), he decides to make the trip under his own steam, absconding from his care home in Hove with his essentials in a blue plastic bag. The premise of this real-life pensioner adventure seems tailor-made for a gently comedic big-screen treatment, a chipper flat-capped caper to the continent. But in fact, the film is unexpectedly melancholic in approach, with Caine delivering a gruffly heartbreaking performance as a man belatedly confronting crippling survivor’s guilt and the knowledge that the psychological wounds sustained in battle never fully heal. Director Oliver Parker (Dad’s Army) favours no-frills functionality; both the second world war flashbacks and the contemporary scenes have something of a TV movie patina. But there’s a real emotional heft to the storytelling and Caine, at 90, is a knockout.
