Year of Release: 2020
Director: Eliza Schroeder
Starring: Celia Imrie, Shelley Conn, Shannon Tarbet, Rupert Penry-Jones, Bill Patterson, Andrew David, Max Parker, Lucy Fleming
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
"Love Sarah" is Eliza Schroeder's feature directorial debut, following a series of TV movies and shorts. The film focuses on the story of three women who come together due to a tragic circumstance. Isabella who is planning on opening a bakery with her best friend Sarah, suddenly finds herself in a precarious situation when she dies. Mimi, Sarah's mother, who was trying to reconnect with her after a fallout, also finds herself anguishing over what could have happened and what she should have done. And Clarissa, Sarah's daughter, finds herself lost, unable to continue her dance studies, and crumbling apart when her relationship also ends. Clarissa reconnects with Isabella and decides to bring the bakery idea back to life, something she soon understands will need quite a bit of an investment. Needing a place to live, she asks for her grandmother's help, and soon convinces her to invest and run the bakery, as an homage to Sarah's memory. While all three women are ready to get things going, they still need a cook. That manifests itself in the presence of Matthew, a well known chef and former colleague and love interest of Sarah, who was also friends with Isabella. After some initial reticence, they all start working together and try to bring the bakery which they name Love Sarah to life.
"Love Sarah" is a breezy film that is filled with good intentions, ultimately reinstating the fact that earth shattering events can bring people together, and that mutual assistance and support can uplift and provide meaning for people. All these are commendable intentions, and the film illustrates fairly well how all these characters come together, however it also does so in a fairly idealized reality, where these characters don't have much substance, and where financial hurdles can easily be surpassed by a well off family member who is available. It's a fairly straightforward narrative, one where all the characters are eventually healed by the bakery, who is indeed an ode to a lost loved one, but that also seemingly becomes a hub for all the multicultural groups of London, looking for a culinary connection to their homeland. So much more could have been probed with the materials that underly this narrative, namely Sarah's connection to all these characters, or even Felix's presence, but the film shies away from illustrating these, providing instead a lighthearted and breezy view of their interactions. The cast is solid in bringing these sketches to life, particularly the always reliable Celia Imrie and Bill Patterson, with good support from Rupert Penry-Jones. The production team is competent, but the film doesn't necessarily have a distinctive and stylistic point of view. It's a watchable but also easily forgotten endeavor.
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