Who seriously bothered to make this film? Honeymooner was trying painstakingly hard to be cool but fell at almost every hurdle. The chosen setting of Camden as ‘the place to be’ seemed a little bit dated, and leading man Gerard Kearns had about as much charisma as a stale crusty bloomer. It’s no wonder really that his fiancée Emma (Lisa Faulkner) leaves him at the beginning of the film, though to be honest I wish she hadn’t. As a result of the break up we’re forced to watch Kearns’ character Fran, moping about in his flat like a wet weekend, drinking alone and washing prescription pills down his neck (though not nearly enough of them in my opinion). Poor miserable Fran, aided by his two incredibly irritating lad mates Jon and Ben, spends the film trying to come to terms with his grief and get back into the dating game. All of this takes place in the weeks between the break-up and the date that the wedding would have taken place.

Honeymooner

The first problem I had with this film is how a drip like Fran ever managed to secure the attentions of Lisa Faulkner in the first place? Probably the only decent actress in Honeymooner, she was gone by the end of the first ten minutes. As a result we were left to endure a film full of characters with few redeeming features, as they muse on life and love with all the subtlety and insight of Nuts magazine. His two testosterone driven friends didn’t seem to have two brain cells to rub together and were basically just two of the worst characters ever. Ben, played by Chris Coghill gets a special mention for being particularly unrealistic. If you knew someone that smarmy and cocksure, there’s no way that the friendship would last longer than a packet of pork scratchings and a Carlsberg in the Camden arms; mind you, if you were as dull as Fran you might not be able to afford to be that picky.

Green Wing’s Daisy Haggard plays Ben’s flakey, kooky girlfriend Jess, who is unappreciated by her Neanderthal other half and inexplicably attracted to Fran. Her character is totally over the top, and though she has promise at the beginning of the film, there is so little let-up in her chipper quirkiness and simpering smile that she soon becomes awfully tedious. Basically to cut a long story short there’s lots of sitting around in pubs, some hilarious faux-pas with the ladies and a slight fallout between the boys all culminating in a rather unsatisfactory conclusion. Any further detail will ruin what small amount of surprise or enjoyment you might possibly glean from watching this film, however, I will say this for Honeymooner, (spoiler alert!) there was ONE good joke. It was about soup.