Definitely not one for the Multiplexes this has Art House written all over it and it's all the better for it. There's a definite Checkovian 'feel' to this one, albeit minor Checkov, with five characters doing nothing much except give a Master Class in Screen Acting. If you actively look for such things you'll find resonances with titles like On Golden Pond and, having brought up Checkov I could argue that they could have re-titled it Two Sisters. Whatever it's a Collectors item even if the story is best not subjected to a strong light; two sisters, both widowed, continue to spend their summers in a cottage in Maine where, years ago, they could track whales briefly; now the whales have gone as has the metaphorical youth of the sisters. Sarah, Lillian Gish, has a suitor of sorts in Vincent Price, a White Russian who exists like Blanche du Bois on the kindness of strangers. Libby, Bette Davis, will have none of it and sends him on his way with a flea in his ear. The two other characters are Ann 'Maisie' Sothern, a friend of Sarah's for sixty years and Harry Carey Jnr - light years away from Monument Valley where he weighed in with support in almost every John Ford Western - as the local repairman. Gentle, Unobtrusive, Unforgettable.
Review of The Whales of August
