SEVERAL YEARS AGO, IN MY HOMETOWN there was a trial where the children of the deceased were suing their stepmother. She was the beneficiary of her husband’s estate according to the will; the children would only receive a nominal amount of money. They were quite upset as you can imagine; especially, because they felt their stepmother only married their father for his money. I should mention the stepmother was 30 years younger than her husband. Now before you question whether I might be subtly being judgmental, I have known both married and dating couples who have had a wide difference between their ages. They were happy together and I was happy for them. What made this trial curious to me was the fact the couple had been married only a couple of years after a brief dating period. It is funny, the only time I might become aware of such cases is when money plays a factor. To be honest I do wonder at times what a couple has in common when they are generations apart. Wasn’t there a celebrity case where the age difference was 40+ years? I would be interested to see, if money was not part of the package would the younger person still be interested in the individual?      WITHIN THE CIRCLES OF PEOPLE I have encountered I have met those who were aggressive in finding a mate. There was a woman who researched the men she dated. When I say research, she would try to get her hands on their credit report, use a friend at the Department of Motor Vehicles to see if the potential mate had a driving record, along with looking for any type of criminal activity. It was startling to see what lengths she would go to filter out those she felt were not suitable love interests. I found it offensive when someone would tell me they did not see themselves with the person they were dating but continued to stick around because they liked the attention and gifts they were getting from the person. To me, people like this are just being mercenary, taking advantage of the individual’s kindness. Maybe these people know they are being taken advantage of; then in that case, I have nothing to say about it. There are all kinds of people out there and what works for one may not work for the other. You might not believe what some people will do for love; for example, the couple in this dramatic thriller may surprise you.      THERE WAS SOMETHING ROY COURTNEY AND Betty McLeish, played by Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings franchise, Mr. Holmes) and Helen Mirren (The Queen, Anna), saw that attracted them to each other. The question however, what exactly was it? With Russell Tovey (The History Boys, Looking-TV) as Stephen, Jim Carter (Downton Abbey, The Oxford Murders) as Vincent and Mark Lewis Jones (Little White Lies, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi) as Bryn; this film shined because of Helen and Ian. They were wonderful to watch and truly did an amazing job with their characters. At times the story played like an Agatha Christie or Dan Brown novel with its twists and turns. The script kept me engaged until it got closer to the end where I was left disappointed; I did not care for the way the story ended. It came across to me as if it was done for a quick way to get out of the tale the story had woven. Too bad because with a little more tweaking and building up more depth to the characters this film could have been an attention grabber. I did not feel used buying a ticket to see this movie; however, I would have appreciated getting more for my money.

2 ½ stars