This is a bleak drama, intermittently comic, set in the geriatric ward of an old hospital in Yorkshire which looks and feels like the one where I had my appendix removed in the 1950s.
Jennifer Saunders is the ward sister, efficiently and briskly coping with everything from assisted showers to incontinence and patient deaths. Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi are among the patients, but the focus is mostly on Joe (David Bradley), a frail old gent hoping to be sent home, and his nerdy son Colin (Russell Tovey, the go-to actor for gay roles), who is on the team planning a new hospital.
The Alan Bennett pedigree guarantees brilliant writing and all the cast do eminent justice to the script, but the tone of the movie is unremittingly glum, largely focused on death and dementia, and the dimly lit hospital adds more gloom. The ending is a bit rushed and not entirely in tune with what's gone before.
This is a dark comedy that is perhaps a bit too dark. Our Mr. Bennett has not lost his touch, but the humor in ALLELUJAH is over-laced with bile and bitterness.
