Dough, 2015.
Directed by John Goldschmidt.
Starring Jonathan Pryce, Jerome Holder, Phil Davis and Pauline Collins.
SYNOPSIS:
In a London suburb, a family owned Jewish bakery is on its uppers, losing customers and under pressure to sell up to developers. Then baker Nat (Jonathan Pryce) loses his assistant, who goes to work for the nearby supermarket because the pay is better. Desperately needing a replacement, he takes on his cleaner’s son, but the new apprentice has a sideline in selling cannabis. He decides to combine his two careers by adding an extra ingredient to his bread and cakes. And the shop’s sales go sky-high.
The temptation to say this isn’t a Homer Simpson bio-pic is almost overwhelming, but it’s not a pun that works especially well in print. With all the current interest in baking, however, it was only a matter of time until we saw a film about the subject, but in Dough we’re not talking fancy cakes. It’s more about bread, plus a few small cakes like muffins. And, Homer aside, there’s still a pun in the title – an even more obvious one.
It’s not an original story by any means. Lacing cakes – brownies, especially, despite not being a Jewish delicacy – with hash is a familiar one from way back when, so the film has to look elsewhere for something to give the plot some much-needed oomph. It plumps for a heavyweight and potentially contentious subject – race and racism. Nat’s apprentice Ayyash (Jerome Holder) is a Muslim. He’s not desperately keen on the Jewish members of the community, and Nat isn’t exactly enamoured by Muslims. A number of his friends at the synagogue have similar feelings on the subject and Ayyash’s comments under his breath about Nat are pretty much on the same level.
But the film doesn’t take it any further than that, deciding to keep it light and frothy. That might have worked a few years ago – and Dough is old-fashioned enough to have been a while ago – but in today’s context it’s superficial and out of touch.
That said, it’s meant to be a comedy and it’s amusing enough, raising smiles rather than actual laughs at the familiarity of the storyline. It trundles along quite happily until about three-quarters of the way through, when it becomes just downright depressingly silly. Until then, despite its shortcomings, it’s carried the audience along on goodwill and a certain amount of charm. But it’s as if writers Jonathan Benson and Jez Freeman couldn’t work out how to wrap things up, so they go for a piece of tired comedy, with the villain of the piece getting his comeuppance in the most obvious and clumsy of ways.
In keeping with the pun theme, it’s a half-baked resolution. Thankfully, the combined talents of veteran Jonathan Pryce and newcomer Jerome Holder manage to keep the film’s head above water. As the odd couple trying to keep the shop going while staying on the right side of the law, they’re an appealing partnership. In truth, this kind of role is like falling off a log for Pryce, but he brings his character to life nicely – a grumpy old man desperately trying to hold on to the family business, while being deeply bitter that his own son refused to continue the tradition. Holder’s Ayyash is likeable but, as a refugee from Darfour, feels like a fish out of water: it’s not his natural inclination to be a drug dealer, but he’s trying to bring in money for both himself and his mother.
The rest of the cast don’t really have much to do, lumbered with one-dimensional characters that waste their talents. Pauline Collins is a the widow with very obvious designs on Pryce, even though her husband died only six weeks ago. Phil Davis is the shady businessman, wanting to buy up all the other shops on the street so he can make a pile from building a car park. But neither actors get much of a chance to get their teeth into anything.
So all there is to do is enjoy the relationship between Ayyash and the unlikely father figure he finds in Nat. Their cross cultural relationship eventually makes mincemeat of the supposed borders that divide them and it’s the best bit of a film that never gets underneath its thin crust.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Freda Cooper. Follow me on Twitter, check out my movie blog and listen to my podcast, Talking Pictures.
