Culture
04 Apr 01

MY LIFE SO FAR

It’s by no means the worst, most cynical or most offensive movie ever to bedevil our screens, but in terms of out-and-out dullness, My Life So Far has very few precursors in film history.

MY LIFE SO FAR

Directed by Hugh Hudson. Starring Robert Norman, Colin Firth, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Irene Jacob

It’s by no means the worst, most cynical or most offensive movie ever to bedevil our screens, but in terms of out-and-out dullness, My Life So Far has very few precursors in film history. Brought to you by the less-than-great Hugh Hudson (career highlight: Chariots Of Fire) it's a twee and extremely unmemorable coming-of-age yarn, based on the no-doubt-thrilling memoirs of ancient British telly-exec Sir Denis Forman, and dealing with his childhood experiences on their family's Scottish Highlands estate in the 1920s. See, you're riveted already, aren't you?

The hero, beautifully-monickered ten-year-old kid Fraser Pettigrew (Norman) is a freckle-faced, inherently uninteresting individual, one of six kids in the family of crackpot-inventor type Edward Pettigrew. The latter is played by the practically unwatchable Colin Firth (Fever Pitch) who could well be the least charismatic actor ever to stalk a screen, and gets copious opportunity to prove it over the course of My Life's none-too-hurried two hours.

Malcolm McDowell (as the kid's millionaire uncle) and Irene Jacob (as said uncle's half-his-age fiancee) turn up in a doomed attempt to invest the proceedings with traces of life, but there's simply nothing going on to lift the blood pressure – it's utterly devoid of any incident whatsoever, and never even threatens to break the spell.

While My Life So Far is impossible to despise, you really need to see the thing in order to get any inkling just how suffocatingly boring it is: I resorted to counting imaginary sheep after the first twenty minutes or so, but the monotony began to grow tiresome before long, so I switched to contemplation of the price of unleaded petrol and the decline of the Venezuelan rubber industry. How my eyelids remained open, I will never have a clue: it's the kind of flick your great-grandparents might just like, but your grandparents would likely find it far too drab and slow-moving.