You know, grandparents want to see movies too. But what do they want to see? Something mildly silly and amusing, preferably from the past, with a touch of British culture of course. Stan & Ollie couldn’t be more geared toward the $5 Tuesday crowd at the theater. It is meant to be digested in the moment, and immediately forgotten by the time you’re having your early bird dinner, costing you less than $20 for the day! Perfect!
Stan & Ollie is about the famous comedy duo Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly). After irreconcilable differences forced their split in 1937, the pair reunited in 1953 to go on theater tours in the UK, in hopes of making one last big film. However, Stan’s bitterness and Oliver’s aging slowly decay the initial optimism for the tour.
This isn’t one of those hard hitting character studies: silly and whimsical best describes Laurel and Hardy’s brand of humor, which is exactly the tone Stan & Ollie takes.There’s pratfally stuff like a broken leg attached to a dumbbell above the head, or silent gags like walking through a 2 door train station constantly missing each other. I never quite cared for Laurel & Hardy’s brand of humor, but under the steadying hands of Reilly and Coogan, the jokes land enough for the audience that you’ll either laugh or smile at what is going on. The modern Reilly/Coogan duo has as good a chemistry with each other as Laurel and Hardy do, with Coogan slipping into the straight doofus while Hardy plays the portly angry man on stage. Reilly and Coogan also play as well off stage, with Coogan’s deadpan humor bouncing charmingly off of Reilly’s likable innocent. The conflict is always minimal, only slightly bubbling up once after a show; however, wisdom has informed both of these men, and the conflict is then sidestepped to keep to the tone light and frothy.
And what the heck? Bring on the hilarious Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda to play Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Laurel, to riff with Coogan and Reilly. Throw in a jerk old Hollywood producer (Danny Houston) and a devious British talent scout (Rufus Jones), and you’ve got yourself an adorable breezy comedy that you’ll be happy you saw and won’t remember a thing about other than John C. Reilly’s fatsuit. I hope he at least got to prepare by eating himself happy!