There were cheers from the preview audience at Luna Leederville when Luna Palace marketing manager Tony Bective announced cinemas would open for business on Thursday, July 2.
And after the long coronavirus drought, the romantic comedy Love Sarah struck the right note with the film-starved patrons.
It’s a charming, feel-good film starring the witty Celia Imrie (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) as Mimi, the reluctant backer of a Notting Hill patisserie.
Her estranged daughter Sarah (Candice Brown) has just died in a cycling accident, on the eve of the cake shop’s planned opening.
Sarah’s partner, her best friend Isabella (Shelley Conn), is ready to abandon the project without Sarah’s cooking to draw the customers.
But Sarah’s daughter Clarissa (Shannon Tarbet) is determined the shop will open as planned.
She persuades her grandmother Mimi to put up the cash, and the three women set about transforming a rundown shop into a stylish coffee shop/patisserie, which they name Love Sarah.
They need a topnotch cake cook, of course, and who should turn up but Sarah’s former lover Matthew (Rupert Penry-Junes), who may or may not be Clarissa’s father.
There is some rivalry between Matthew and Isabella, who is also a talented cook, and a spark of romance between the two.
Grandmother Mimi turns out to have a suprising background as a trapeze artist, and it’s intriguing to know if 67-year-old Imrie actually performed those lithe aerial movements herself.
Director Eliza Schroeder and screenwriter Jake Brunger have produced an engaging rom-com in Love Sarah, light-hearted, predictable and thoroughly enjoyable.
Cinemaphotographer Aeron Reid makes the most of the Notting Hill scenery, not to mention the mouth-watering treats such as giant rose macarons.
Love Sarah opens at Luna Leederville and the Windsor Cinema on July 2, and at Luna SX on July 3.
Watch the trailer…
