Review of Stan & Ollie (2018) by Markhreviews — 01 Feb 2019

From the 1920s to the early 1950s, the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy made over 100 films. They began with short silent films, graduated to short sound films and eventually starred in 23 full-length feature films. In their heyday, Laurel and Hardy were among the best-known and most-beloved personalities in show business.

After a brief vignette focusing on the team at the peak of its popularity in 1937, “Stan and Ollie” examines the pair on a 1953 tour of Britain and Ireland. By this time, many assume the team has retired, requiring Stan (Steve Coogan) and Ollie (John C. Reilly in a fat suit) to judge beauty pageants, meet with local officials and do whatever is required to build an audience for their stage performances in small, depressing theaters. The pair does so without complaint. Their efforts result in a sold-out series of performances at the Lyceum Theatre in London. By the time their tour concludes in Ireland, their boat is greeted at the dock by a large, adoring crowd.

Screenwriter Jeff Pope brings to these proceedings the same air of mournful wistfulness that permeated his screenplay for 2013’s “Philomena.” In the hands of Director Jon S. Baird, the script becomes a quiet, thoughtful examination of two colleagues dealing in very different ways with the melancholy and introspection that come when a career is much closer to the end than its beginning. A note in the postscript catches the essence of this film: from Hardy’s death in 1957 until his own in 1965, Stan Laurel continued to industriously write dozens of sketches and comedy scenes – all for the team of Laurel and Hardy.

The performances of Coogan and Reilly are the engines that propel this film, although they inhabit their roles in totally different ways. Steve Coogan offers a tour de force, eerily mimicking many of Stan Laurel’s physical traits, from his Chaplinesque walk to his literal head-scratching antics. His carefully calibrated performance depicts convincingly Laurel’s drive for success, his anxiety about financial security and his bridling at unjust treatment by the Hollywood system. But, ultimately, Coogan communicates Laurel’s quiet joy in just doing the work. John C. Reilly, in contrast, is a study in understatement, content to portray quite simply a man of simple needs and pleasures. Both are riveting. Reilly received a Best Actor Golden Globe nomination for this role. Coogan is nominated for Best Actor by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

In many ways, “Stan and Ollie” is an elegy and an homage to a bygone era. Given the chaos, insanity and self-absorption that regularly dominate headlines today, this film offers a forceful nod toward different values – the virtue of daily professionalism, the value of work for its own sake and the gentle rewards of well-earned friendship.