Life Goes On

This ill-disciplined saga about a moneyed British-Asian family coming to terms with the death of a matriarch should really have been called ‘Life Goes On and On and On and On…’. Debut writer-director Sangeeta Datta mercilessly stretches every scene to breaking point, which not only serves to emphasise the pallid script and a clutch of performances so wooden you could fashion a fleet of Spanish galleons from them, but makes you lose sight of who or what the the film is supposed to be about. The story of a father ceding his wealth to his daughters echoes ‘King Lear’ – we know this because characters quote chunks of it apropos of nothing. But literary ambitions aside, the central drama is consistently stymied by flashbacks, dreams, inner monologues and even musical interludes, all of which display the aspirational, soft-focus whimsy of a mid-morning lifestyle programme. You can admire its total lack of cynicism, but you’ll be less forgiving of its lack of filmmaking artistry.