With her grown-up son living with his own family some distance away, the widowed “Elsie” (Brenda Blethyn) is clinging on to what’s left of her independence in her bungalow. Three times a week, a nurse comes to check she is ok and give her a shower but these people are on a schedule and have little time to engage with her. That’s what her neighbour “Colleen” (Andrea Risborough) notices one day, and then when her dog “Sabre” manages to trash her flower bed, she decided to apologise and set in train a gradually evolving friendship between these two women. Initially, it’s just a little bit of shopping but as they begin to chat more, both become a little more reliant on the other for company and the roots of a solid friendship look like they are being put down. Meantime, her son (Jason Watkins) is becoming very suspicious that this benefits-funded neighbour is ingratiating herself with his mother, and a surprise visit sees him make some interventions that have fairly devastating results for everyone. They watch an awful lot of telly here, but never a daytime edition of “Vera” - which I though was odd, but otherwise both of these women live lonely, day-in, day-out existences that change little from week to week, and pacing of the storytelling and the efforts from both here help to quite poignantly convey that, almost meaningless, mundanity. “Colleen” adores her charismatic mutt, and for the most part you sense that is probably the only loving relationship either are likely, for completely different reasons, to enjoy. There is a scene in this involving a card and it’s PIN number that has you on the edge of your seat, and it made me realise just how untrusting I had become and probably would remain - especially as Riseborough’s characterisation does create a degree of ambiguity. The fact is, we don’t know if “Colleen” is trustworthy or not and outward appearances prove integral to the thrust of this story. I didn’t really appreciate the conclusion, not because it didn’t work, but because it seemed completely unnecessary and created for dramatic effect. That said, though, these two actors gently expose flaws in a society that sees us increasingly isolating ourselves and losing our abilities to judge a person’s character by their deeds rather than by our own sceptical prejudices.
