ALLELUJAH
★★
OUT 17 MARCH / CERT 12A / 99 MINS
DIRECTOR Richard Eyre
CAST Jennifer Saunders, Bally Gill, Russell Tovey, Judi Dench
Richard Eyre’s bewildering adaptation of Alan Bennett’s play Allelujah, about an at-risk elderly ward in Yorkshire and its residents’ efforts to save it, starts with kindly Dr Valentine (Bally Gill) espousing how he’s “always loved the old”. By its end, he’s face-masked up, delivering a bone-rattling monologue about the state of the NHS after some Shyamalan-worthy WTF-ery. In-between, we’re treated to an unholy cross between an Age UK advert and The Good Nurse, blighted by obfuscatory faux to-camera bits and mixed messages about the root of our health service’s woes. Eyre’s all-star cast galvanise some good will, but even the sight of Dame Judi Dench figuring out how to use an iPad can’t save a film that seems to have no idea what its story is — or how to tell it.