The term “coming of age” has become tiresome, an overused cliché depicting those indecisive teens yearning for an illusory, still to be defined, purpose of being. Director Michael Caton-Jones’s “Our Ladies” takes place in a small Scottish town in the mid 1990’s, as five rambunctious choir girls hanker for boozy, sexual encounters, on a field trip to Edinburgh. Secure in the parameters of blossoming adulthood these jejune “ladies”, with levity, and at times hilarity, toil towards their mission.
“Orla” (poignant, sensitive Tallulah Greive) a cancer survivor, whose wisdom is keenly cured because of her affliction; “Finnoula” (Abigail Lawrie) questions her sexual identity with experimentation; “Kylah” (Marli Siu) with an angelic voice tests the limits of her gift with gutsy resolve; “Manda” (Sally Messham) salaciously seduces her “mark” of choice; “Chell” (Rona Morison) finalizes the quintette cabal.
There is a poignancy for those well beyond the neophyte stage of life, watching young women squandering their potential, in exchange for ephemeral enchantments, pitching to the wind attributes that should be preserved; choices define and inform all lives; of the five, few realized their prospects.
THREE STARS!!!
Peneflix