Tea with the Dames

Documentaries frequently can be worth watching even when they are only mediocre productions due to the sheer interesting nature of the topic. In this case, four great English actresses, all with Damehoods (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Littlewood and Eileen Atkins) discuss their careers and reminisce on roles, responsibilities, successes and failures.

All four do have interesting lives and stories, but the presentation means that quite frequently the context has to be imported from any knowledge you might have about the topic - the film rarely stops to explain very much at all. And occasionally stories get a little meandering with four people trying to narrate it together - a tighter edit may have been helpful. The questioning rarely gets particularly deep (which may be by design - I'm not sure we see anything that the actresses don't want to be seen). But still... there's quality in just spending time with these four legends, and in letting them tell their own stories, even if this isn't the tidiest or most direct way of doing it.

So this is pleasant but makes me wish it was better.