In Celebration
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Year Released: 1975
Rating: 3.0
Three brothers return to their parents' home to 'celebrate' their parents' 40th anniversary, but like with so many of these 'coming home' plays (I'm reminded of Pinter's The Homecoming and even August Osage County), it isn't much of a party ... more of a Festivus-style 'Airing of Grievances.' Anderson can't do much to expand the play outside the cramped living room of the house - limitations, limitations - but what goes in inside is perceptive: most people have gripes about the way they were raised and take issue with their parents' 'advice' - childhood scars us all - and David Storey is wise enough to understand that the best we can do is just move on ... it ends with a hug, and that hug says it all. Alan Bates gets the showy, antagonistic role as the brother who ditches a 'normal' career for one as a poor artist; Brian Cox seems miscast as the haunted, near-mute brother, but he tries his damnedest.
