Closing Night Gala
World Premier
Hattie Dalton/ UK 2010/ 86 min/ tbc
Third Star is a man-buddy movie, but before you start panicking at the thought of another The Hangover, it’s a buddy movie with a twist. James has terminal cancer. He’s 29, and as he tells us from the off, he won’t see 30. He gathers his three best friends and goes on an odyssey to his favourite place, Barafundle Bay in Pembrokeshire. Like any epic journey, there are demons to wrestle, ghosts to lay to rest and relationships to honour. But James’s friends know that the final battle is one James must face alone, and one that he cannot win.
Third Star is a beautiful film. Shot on the Pembrokeshire coast, the breathtaking landscape adds poignancy to James’s sadness and anger at having to leave it. Staring out across the coast he says ‘If this was heaven, I’d be pretty bloody chuffed.’ And you can see his point. The relationship between the four men is fractious, funny and genuinely convincing, thanks to an assured script from Vaughan Silvell and great performances from the four leads. As James gets weaker and the men take turns carrying him, the metaphor becomes clear; it is a weighty burden watching a loved one die. The question of whether James is asking too much of his friends, and if their friendship is strong enough to bear the weight, hovers over them even as they lose themselves in the weightless pleasures of swimming in James’s beloved bay. Third Star captures the sadness, anger and frustration of the friends James must leave behind- as he says, it’s his disease, but it’s their tragedy. And ours.
Showing @ Cineworld 26th June 21:30