Their popularity has waned significantly, but their bond is still strong. Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody, Stan & Ollie doesn’t attempt to cover the peaks and troughs of their entire career, rather putting one particular chapter of their relationship under the microscope, and exploring it with faithful candour That chapter is the last of their live UK stage tour in 1953, where the pair embarked on a series of live shows to half-empty theatres in order to make enough money to last until their next film project is green lit. As likely to appeal to the most hardcore of their fans as it is to those who have never seen their work The two actors transmit the feeling of brotherhood and genuine love shared between Laurel and Hardy with palpable authenticity. And Coogan has never been better in a role it seems he was born to play. For Reilly, an actor who has made a career of crossing between drama and comedy with adroit dexterity, the role seems custom made.

Everything, from their mannerisms, the unique timbre of their voices down to the way they perform their on-stage routines is uncanny, leaving me with the increasingly unique feeling of pure escapism: I wasn’t watching two great actors pretending to be Laurel and Hardy, I was watching Laurel and Hardy. Their likeness owes a lot to the remarkable prosthetic and make-up work (Reilly spent three hours getting made-up into a ‘fat suit’ every day), but also the dedication shown by both actors to so accurately portray the comedy duo. Baird’s first choice for the roles of Stan and Ollie, Steve Coogan and John C.

There are a hundred ways in which I could start listing off the good aspects of this film, but it feels right to begin with the performances.

So it was with unbridled delight that I left the cinema screen having seen the care, passion and beauty with which this story of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had been told.

had been sublime as Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough’s gorgeous 1992 film about the silent film star, but for every great biopic, there are at least ten ugly, truncated and frankly shitty retellings of people’s lives, such as Diana, All Eyez on Me and Jobs, for example. Would their story transfer to the big screen? Robert Downey Jr. So naturally, it was with a mixed sense of excitement and trepidation that I reacted to the news that the pair were to be given the movie biopic treatment. Some of my happiest memories came from a childhood spent being introduced to their work by a Dad that had been shown it by his Father, so timeless and cross-generational was their unique brand of visual comedy. Like millions of other people, I’ve always had a strong affinity for Laurel and Hardy.

Movie review stan and ollie