Rosamund Pike and David Tennant are a top cast for What We Did On Our Holiday, but don’t rush to see it

DESPITE a top notch cast of Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike and former Doctor Who David Tennant, What We Did On Our Holiday struggles to rise above so-so sitcom status.

'WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAYS' - Rosamund Pike and David Tennant for National Hit

What We Did On Our Holiday (M)

Directors: Andy Hamilton, Guy Jenkin

Starring: Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly, Celia Imrie.

Rating: **

Many vacancies, but fails to stay

What you shouldn’t be doing with your free time is rushing to see this so-so, semi-sitcom-ish affair, which really should be permanently vacationing on TV.

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and David Tennant (ex-Doctor Who) play Abi and Doug, estranged spouses hauling their three precocious kids all the way from London to Scotland.

The reason for the journey? There’s going to be a clan-wide celebration of the 75th birthday of Doug’s dad Gordy (Billy Connolly). It is no spoiler to reveal that the old fella has come down with a complaint that means he isn’t long for this world.

On set ... Rosamund Pike and Billy Connolly.

And really, once you’ve sampled how the adult members of Gordy’s extended family carry on, you wouldn’t blame this perfectly amiable charmer for wanting to hurry up and cark it already.

Seriously, everybody above school age in this movie is a whiny, self-obsessed buzzkill.

With their marriage not-so-secretly in tatters, Abi and Doug rip at each other at every opportunity. Their bickering banter would almost be tolerable if a little wit and warmth could be detected in the writing of their characters.

Popular actors ... David Tennant and Rosamund Pike.

However, the usually likable actors Pike and Tennant find themselves smothered by a movie aspiring to be wacky, worldly and with-it all at once, but rarely achieving any of these objectives for very long.

Connolly and the child actors get the best scenes on offer, and do quite well with them.

Semi-sitcomish film ... What We Did On Our Holiday.

In fact, there is one remarkable sequence on a remote beach featuring this quartet which is truly unforgettable. As much as I wish I could go into more detail about the totally unexpected happenings here, I wish even more the filmmakers could have come up with material to match it elsewhere in proceedings.

For the most part, the rest of the cast carp at one another and conform to staid stereotypes until most onlookers will be beyond caring anymore. In short, this is no holiday at all.

Originally published as Rosamund Pike and David Tennant are a top cast for What We Did On Our Holiday, but don’t rush to see it