Review of the dramedy “Better Days” by Koki Gidroych

At the box office, the musical dramedy “Better Days” by Koki Gidroych is an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name, compiled from the songs of Take That. However, even for those who are indifferent to the work of this team, the film can become a source of pure joy, slightly seasoned with nostalgia, believes Yulia Shagelman.

When Rachel (Lara McDonnell) was fifteen, she lived in a small town in the north of England, and the most valuable things in her life were two things: the company of four friends – Debbie (Jesse Mae Alonso), Heather (Eliza Dobson), Claire (Carragon Guest) and Zoe (Nandi Hudson) – and the music of your favorite boy band (in the film, he is unnamed, and his members are simply called “guys”). Pop songs about love and separation distracted from everyday hardships like constantly swearing parents, and most importantly, helped to dream. Of an undeniably bright future in which Rachel marries one of the guys and gives birth to five children, Debbie becomes a pop star that conquers the charts, Heather is a fashion designer, Claire is an Olympic champion in diving, and Zoe is a professor in one of the famous universities. And, of course, they will always be friends and will never lose sight of each other.

Twenty-five years later, Rachel (Ashlyn Bean) lives in London and works as a nurse in the children’s department of a hospital. Instead of a husband and five children, she has a longtime boyfriend, Jeff (Mark Wootton), and a dog she adopted from a shelter. And it’s not that Jeff doesn’t want to get married, quite the contrary, he offers Rachel a hand and heart again and again with enviable regularity, but for some reason she is afraid to bind herself with obligations, each time refusing him under less and less convincing pretexts. As for her friends, Rachel hadn’t talked to any of them in all these years. The only thing she has left from her past life is the “boys”, of whom she is still a devoted fan. She even enters a radio contest to win tickets to a concert on their new tour, which will bring the band back together after a long break—and, of course, wins. After several days of thinking about who she should go to a concert in Athens with, and once again refusing poor Jeff, Rachel decides that it’s time for her girls’ company to reunite.

The musical, written by screenwriter Tim Firth, premiered in Manchester in 2017, followed by a tour of Britain and Ireland before making its West End debut a year later. This year it was revived on stage under the name “Better Days” (at first the performance was simply called “Group”), and also filmed. Three of the members of Take That acted as executive producers of the film and appear in cameos, but neither they nor their on-screen “doubles”, successfully reincarnated as typical 1990s pop boys with perhydrol bangs, piercings and funny outfits, are not the main ones here. The focus is on real, without any ironic connotations, female friendship, carried through years, quarrels, broken dreams and personal tragedies of various sizes. And also the feeling perfectly captured by Kiki Gidroych and her actresses (adults Claire, Heather and Zoe are played by Jade Adams, Alice Lowe and Amaka Okafor) when you, having exchanged your forties, manage to become again for a minute a girl who knows how to shamelessly dream, fall in love and loudly sing songs that are not approved by adults with “good” taste.

Like the music that inspired it, “Better Days” feels silly and overly sentimental at times. But, despite the fantasy of the screen world, in which the airport suddenly becomes a stage for a musical number in the style of the Hollywood golden age, and the statues in the fountain come to life and join the general choir, the emotions here remain real and rooted in real life. And in it, as you know, sometimes the best soundtrack is a stupid song that has been stuck in your head since you were fifteen.