Starring: Kris Marshall, Annelise Hesme
Sparks & Embers
Director: Gavin Boyter
Rating: 1.5/5
The run up to Christmas can be a romantic time of the year and we see movies take advantage of that with com-coms and drama/romance films that tend to come our way.
2015 is no different as Sparks & and Embers hits the big screen today and sees Gavin Boyter in the director's chair as he makes his feature film directorial debut. As well as being in the director's chair, Boyter has also penned the screenplay.
Feisty and strong-willed, Eloise (Hesme), 27, is uncomfortable being forcibly confined with someone she has fired. But Tom's (Marshall) juvenile attitude to their predicament helps her hide the embarrassment under a mask of contempt. Secretly, she's vulnerable, claustrophobic, and attracted to Tom despite his childishness. As the temperature in the lift begins to rise, so do their tempers. Tom and Eloise seesaw between war and truce, but eventually hostilities subside as mutual attraction takes hold.
Christmas Eve. Five years on. Tom and Eloise meet on London's South Bank for the last time. They've had a four-year relationship, which broke up six months ago. Tom says he's meeting her to say goodbye - Eloise is moving back to France and a seemingly perfect new life with a perfect new fiancé. Against the backdrop of a crisp evening, Tom and Eloise amble towards the train station and reminisce about their four years together. But as the pair rake over the remains of their relationship, old memories evoke feelings that both have tried to squash. Subtly they interrogate each other's true motives for this final meeting.
Look, I understand what Gavin Boyter is trying to do with Sparks & Embers, but he just fails to pull it off. Sadly, there is not an ounce of charm in this film and Sparks & Embers offers nothing new when it comes to this genre of film.
It is a story that we have seen so many times before and characters that are like hundreds that we have seen over the years. Throw in the fact that there is virtually no chemistry between Marshall and Hesme and you wonder how these two characters could have had a four-year relationship in the first place.
This movie may be called Sparks & Embers, but there is nothing of the sort here - there's certainly nothing that could that turn into a fire and pull audiences into the story and make you care about the central characters.
We have seen so many of these types of films hit the big screen over the years and there is nothing in Sparks & Embers that will make you remember it when you leave the cinema. It is a forgettable movie that has none of the charm and warmth that you expect from this kind of film.
Throw in a couple of characters that we have met before and are drastically underdeveloped, and you have a movie that is - sadly - rather dull and uninteresting. While Sparks & Embers is by no means the worst movie that you will ever see, there is little here to redeem or save it.
Sparks & Embers is out now.