Inspiring, Genuine, Heartwarming
Year Released: 2014
Directed by; Julian Farino
Starring: Toby Jones, Gemma Jones, Tony Curran, Greg McHugh, Nicholas Gleaves
(Not Rated: 88 min.)
Genre: Drama

“I’ve always wanted to be happy so I decided to be.” Neil Baldwin

Right now the world seems an insecure and frightening place to us, doesn’t it? What better time to watch this terrific film about someone who never let the world or his inborn limitations get him down. Meet Neil Baldwin, Britain’s own version of Forest Gump, but without the Hollywood sentimentality.

Like the Tom Hanks character, he’s a Christian man, whose simple view of the world might seem to reveal a kind of holy wisdom. Unlike the Tom Hanks character, Neil Baldwin is a real, still-living person. The triumph of Marvellous is that it’s a feel-good film that feels good, not through any Hollywood schmaltz, but through the sheer force of Baldwin’s own optimistic personality. –Ellen E. Jones

Well, kind of a blend between Forest Gump and Chance the gardener from the classic 1979 Peter Sellers film, Being There. And maybe with a little touch of Leonardo DiCaprio from 2002’s Catch Me if You Can. With his undying confidence and optimism, Neil leaps, knowing the net will appear.

After being canned from his early career as a circus clown, he in undaunted, telling his worried mother that he has found a job at the nearby university. “When did they offer you the job, Neil?” she asks.

“Tomorrow,” is his succinct reply.

And he does ingratiate himself into the local Keele University community, first acting like a Walmart greeter on campus, welcoming students as they enter. Before long he runs into someone who shares his love for the local Stokes Football Team (that’s soccer for us Yanks), and before long he is feasting for free at the student union on a daily basis.

That young man was Malcolm Clark (Greg McHugh), who later became the student union president.

"Neil's complete lack of self- consciousness has made him many genuine friendships with the famous," says Clarke. "People say he's a fantasist, but he isn't – he turns his fantasies into reality.

***

When his mother goes through the traditional paths to get him a job, Neil tells the employment clerk that he will only settle for two jobs - either to be a vicar for the Church of England or to manage a football team. And he actually does achieve one of those goals.

But his greatest talent is to be happy and persevere. Maybe having mental limitations is no limitation at all. Maybe being mentally complex just bogs us down with too many doubts and made up complexity.

When famed soccer coach Lou Macari (Tony Curran) asks Neil the secret to being so positive through thick and thin, his reply is simple but in its own way profound:

“I’ve always wanted to be happy so I decided to be.”

Reminding Different Drummer’s of one of her favorite quotations:

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

***

One of the innovative ways of filming this treasure, first broadcast on the BBC before coming stateside via Acorn and YouTube, is the sometime juxtaposition of the actor playing Neil, Toby Jones, with the real Neil.

They even have a few conversations on film. In the film we watch one soccer players make some rude comments to Neil, but he sloughs them off as locker room banter.

“Didn’t you think he was picking on you because of your difficulties?” asks the screen Neil.

Without a pause and totally sincere, the real Neil asks him back, “What difficulties?”

Maybe that’s how he gets invited to dinner with a Tony Benn, a Member of Parliament for 47 years, insisting that the stoic British guards standing outside that famous edifice break their code of silence and deliver a handwritten note to him. It said

"Neil Baldwin from Keele – friend of Steve's." And it was actually true, too. Steve was Tony Benn’s son, who to this day is still friends with Neil.

Toby Jones completely captures the artless and benign character of Neil – well not completely artless, since he is almost a professional is asking for and then getting just what he needs and desires.

The scenes are never maudlin or mawkish, and maybe that is why you will laugh and cry quite easily – you are not being manipulated into feeling these emotions. They are as genuine as the real this force of nature, Neil Baldwin.

Not to miss. Especially now.

–Kathy Borich
🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

Film-Loving Foodie

Neil loves to eat, especially sweets, pastas, and just about any and all junk food. And he has a way of getting others to feed him for free.

Sometimes he even cooks for himself. Different Drummer is sure that he would enjoy this very English treat. These Petticoat Tails are easy to make and even someone like Neil, with his talent for mooching food from just about just about anyone, could handle this easy recipe.

A fun project for aspiring junior cooks, too.

And best of all, the recipe is from Different Drummer’s own Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook.

Petticoat Tails

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated or brown sugar

3 cups flour, sifted

½ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Cream butter with sugar. Resift flour with baking powder and add to butter. Add vanilla. Press into 4 7-inch round pans and prick well all over with a fork

Press a small juice glass into the center of each pan to form a circular mark; then mark off eight wedges from circle to edge of each pan.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 20 minutes or until golden. Cool in pan.

Gently cut markings and lift off.

Almond extract or grated orange or lemon rind may be substituted for vanilla. Shortbreads may be decorated with multicolored sugar before baking or iced with thin sugar icing.

Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook