Frank and Percy review – bromance becomes romance for dog walkers Ian McKellen and Roger Allam

Key points

• Ian McKellen and Roger Allam reprise their stage roles as Percy and Frank in the film version of Ben Weatherill's play, directed by Sean Mathias.
• The film is a bittersweet comedy about finding love later in life, with a supporting cast including Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, Derek Jacobi, Ncuti Gatwa and Hugh Skinner.
• The review notes tender sweetness and some sugary sentimentality, but says the movie's easy-going good nature wins out.

Ian McKellen and Roger Allam star in the film adaptation of Ben Weatherill's play Frank and Percy, reprising the roles they originated on stage. Sean Mathias again directs, with Martin Sherman writing the screenplay for the expanded movie version.

The film is a bittersweet comedy about finding love later in life. It follows Frank, a retired history teacher whose wife died of cancer a few years earlier, and Percy, an academic sociologist and climate scientist, as their friendship grows into romance.

Plot and supporting cast

Allam's Frank walks his dog Toffee on Hampstead Heath, where McKellen's Percy can also be found with his dog Bruno. Percy is acrimoniously separated from his ex-partner, played by Stephen Fry. Both men are lonely in different ways: Frank mopes around the garden centre and volunteers at a charity shop where Derek Jacobi, as a salaried employee, is allowed to sit, while Percy uses a niche website called Papa Search, with broad comedy cameos from Ncuti Gatwa and Hugh Skinner.

Over a drink, Percy asks if he might kiss Frank, and Frank agrees. Frank later wonders if he is bisexual, but the review suggests he may simply be sexual in a way he never expected. The film includes bittersweet comedy as the men realise their social life consists of funerals, and Percy has a startling Yorick moment in a churchyard.

I felt like I did when I had a cataract removed.

— Frank

Tone and performances

The review describes a tender sweetness in this silver-years romance, along with some sugary sentimentality, an autumnal woodwind score and sitcom-cartoony characterisation in the supporting turns. It says this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, but the movie's easy-going good nature wins out.

Joanna Lumley is singled out for a terrific contribution as Belinda, Frank's sister-in-law, an elegant woman poignantly suffering from early onset dementia. In a moment of lucidity, Belinda tells Frank: "How lucky you are to have a broken heart at 77!" The review calls it a comforting love story.