The Almond And The Seahorse Two-Star Cinema Review

The Almond And The Seahorse is the big screen adaptation of the 2008 Katie O’Reilly stage play stars Rebel Wilson and Charlotte Gainsbourg as women who are dealing with partners who have had Brain Trauma that forever changed their loved ones & the fallout which comes from this tragedy.

The script written by Celyn Jones and playwright Katie O’Reilly opens with a false note of flashing forward six months to when the leads have come together ending up in a hotel room which deflates what potential drama there could be later in the narrative because the screenplay is all around the events that makes them decide to have their partners living full time at the care home that Meera Syal’s Dr Falmer runs.

Almond And The Seahorse is a well-intentioned Dramedy that has something interesting to say about the aftereffects of medical trauma on our loved ones; it also leaves emotional distress on our partners & those around us.

When it comes to the cast Rebel Wilson in her first dramatic role is effective in the emotional moments of longing for the husband she once had while trying to grasp he’s unfortunately changed and Celyn Jones as her husband Joe has some good moments, particularly in a section where he is at home alone trying to figure out his tablets but becomes overwhelmed by other things going on around him such as cold callers although the sequence with the doughnuts is badly misjudged in terms of its direction.

Charlotte Gainsbourg’s plot line with her partner Gwen (Trine Dryholm) is just as emotionally trying as what Sarah is going through with her husband because she’s dealing with the death of the baby that was killed in a car accident they had and the fallout of Gwen being hurt in the smash but it feels like it should have been a separate movie or episode of a TV Drama series situated in the care home.

I have to mention the small role that Alice Lowe plays as Joe’s sister Cath who only has three scenes in the film mostly with Rebel Wilson she turns to vent out her frustrations and serve as someone to confess her one-night stand with Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Toni but Cath has as a refreshing take on what happened between the two female leads.

The direction from Celyn Jones who appeared in the original stage play & cinematographer Tom Stern who has been in Clint Eastwood’s movies since Blood Work gave the film a Hollywood sheen to the movie that was mostly filmed in & around North Wales, Liverpool and The Wirral but for the low key story they are trying to tell feels out of place.

The Almond And The Seahorse named after the shapes of the Amygdala and the Hippocampus parts of the brain that make us the person we are was a film that I was keen to see because the production company also made the underrated The Vanishing about the mysterious disappearance of the Flannan Lighthouse Keepers shot in and Wigtownshire with Gerald Butler & Peter Mullan but this film was a swing and a miss for me.

The Almond And The Seahorse in UK Cinemas From May 10th 2024