Adeel Akhtar doesn’t seem to be getting enough sleep. The actor’s face, in this British love story, resembles the site of a chaotic archaeological dig. His co-star, 50-year-old Claire Rushbrook has also been made to look pretty shattered. These are not your average romantic leads. Thanks to their above-average acting, however, you won’t give a monkey’s. In all the ways that count, the characters they play are irresistible.
As with all director/writer Clio Barnard’s previous films, the story is set in West Yorkshire, here Bradford. Pakistani-British Ali (Akhtar) sports a hat that could double as a tea cosy. It makes him look witless, but he doesn’t seem to care. A former DJ, secretly estranged from his much younger wife Runa (Ellora Torchia), he’s cheerful and borderline manic, collecting rent money on behalf of his property-owning parents.
