Stan & Ollie

Released 2018. Director: Jon S. Baird

BEFORE ABBOTT & COSTELLO, Martin & Lewis, Lemmon & Matthau, Belushi & Ackroyd and other iconic comedy duos, there were Laurel & Hardy. The pioneers of physical comedy and contrasting personalities hit their peak in the 1930s and 40s and made a successful transition from silent film to the early days of sound, appearing in over 100 films. Their legacy is a lasting influence on every act that came after them.

Steve Coogan plays the reed-thin Stan Laurel with a Chaplin demeanour, while the rotund and irritable Oliver Hardy is John C. Reilly in a body suit. The two actors nail their performances like you've never seen them before. It's not just the physical attributes but the complementary chemistry in their comic timing and synergy that demonstrates why they were the biggest comedy act of their time.

The movie takes place in the late 1950s as the duo tour UK in their final years, playing to half empty second-rate venues before a last hurrah in London where, deservedly, to packed audiences.

The primary focus is on the friendship between the two comedians. Watching them over their months-long tour allows the audience to peer into the finer details in their personal and professional relationship. In a way this movie functions as a “behind-the-scenes” look at the making of a Laurel and Hardy show. It's a delight to see how they work together because Laurel and Hardy are the breed of artists with a rare combination of talent and mutual awareness as creative partners. They could read each other's mind, as it were.

Underneath the chuckles, however, there's a melancholy the men seem intent to push aside. The dramatic tension lurking behind their intimate collaboration is a shadow of betrayal that hangs over the laughs they dole out. Sixteen years ago Hardy worked with a different partner for awhile in the period when Laurel's contract with the studio had expired, and Laurel has never forgotten, nor forgiven.

As a celebration of their legacy, the movie stands as a loving tribute to their dedication – to their craft and each other. Laurel never stops writing and devising scenes, including those for a Robin Hood movie that will never be made; and Hardy persists stubbornly that the show must go on despite his failing health, against his doctor's advice. They are natural entertainers, never missing an opportunity to slip an act into everyday encounters, always ready to bring on a smile and a laugh. They are such consummate entertainers that when they argue bitterly and air their buried grievances, people couldn't tell if it's all part of their show.

The wives--Laurel's Ida, played by Nina Arianda; and Hardy's Lucille, played by Shirley Henderson--are a double act of their own, cordially tolerating each other in public appearances while fiercely protective of their husbands. In private, they see the men strain under the pressure of a business to always keep up a jolly front.

Stan & Ollie is not a standard biopic. It doesn't chart the rise, fall and redemption in a chronological arc. It doesn't even show us how the two men first met and became successful together. The short period in their lives the movie takes us into encapsulates the triumphant highs and the demoralising lows in their joint career, told in a beautifully nuanced and humanistic way. It's a window into the kind of men and artists they were, and why they remain one of the most loved pair of comedy entertainers.

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