REVIEW: Joan Collins and Pauline Collins wasted in ham-fisted comedy The Time Of Their Lives

REVIEW: On paper it’s a promising feel-good, grey power idea — but an erratic Joan Collins and a wasted Pauline Collins fall flat.

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES (M)

Director: Roger Goldby

Starring: Joan Collins, Pauline Collins, Franco Nero

Verdict: Grey-powered road movie is running on empty

JOAN Collins as an octogenarian diva determined to age disgracefully. Pauline Collins as the mousy grandmother who gets caught in her slipstream.

On paper, it sounds like a winning combination.

And Collins certainly commands the camera’s attention as Helen Shelley, a faded Hollywood star who busts out of her retirement home to attend the funeral of her former lover, a famous film director, in France.

The self-absorbed lush doesn’t even pretend to be driven by such a noble motivation as paying her last respects — for Helen, the funeral is one last chance to land a juicy comeback role.

While it’s fascinating to watch Collins’ beauty wax and wane according the lighting and camera angles, she simply doesn’t have the dramatic range to play a role like this for keeps.

And director Roger Goldby seems to want to transcend the actress’s soapie credentials — it’s hard to tell, since The Time Of Their Lives sits awkwardly between melodrama, comedy and naturalism, without committing to any one register.

Pauline Collins and Franco Nero in a scene from film The Time Of Their Lives.

Collins is hardly the film’s only weak spot, however. It has precious few strengths.

The unrelated Pauline Collins should be able to play a role like Priscilla in her sleep.

The browbeaten English housewife is an older, stiffer variation on some of her best-loved characters (Shirley Valentine and Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War for starters.)

But a miserable bully of a husband (Ronald Pickup) and a severe, four-decade-long case of guilt haven’t just curtailed Priscilla’s life force, they’ve effectively snuffed it out. As played by Pauline Collins, she barely registers as a presence.

Joan Collins in a scene from film The Time of Their Lives.

After being sucked into Helen’s orbit by a good Samaritan act, Priscilla simply lacks the will to pull herself free.

More than a dozen years ago, the redoubtable Ladies In Lavender — Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith — identified a cashed-up market for feel-good, grey-powered movies.

Six years later, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel proved their cross over potential.

This ill-conceived road movie aimed at a similar demographic takes a dramatic wrong turn. Older audiences might be a bit slower on their feet than they used to be, but their critical faculties are just as sharp.

The Time Of Their Lives opens on Thursday (August 10)

Originally published as REVIEW: Joan Collins and Pauline Collins wasted in ham-fisted comedy The Time Of Their Lives