Dench is on almost literally sparkling form – the story lives or dies by her ability to twinkle as mesmerisingly for us as the book’s Mrs Silver does for Hoppy – and Hoffman is … well, just perfect. Corden is warm and uncynical without becoming dull or twee. Every line shines, every moment is polished, the slight plot unfolds smoothly and sweetly – everything is done to a turn. Mr Hoppy devises a scheme involving a made-up Bedouin chant, the purchase of 100 incrementally bigger tortoises and a Heath Robinsonesque contraption with which to lift Alfie up to his flat and replace him with a larger successor every few weeks.Įverything about the film is beautiful. “My Facebook status is … ‘Not on Facebook’,” he replies pensively), and becomes anxious about the creature’s slow growth. Then she gets a tortoise, Alfie, for company (“My Facebook status – ‘widowed’,” she explains to Mr Hoppy. He has not yet mustered the courage to ask her up to his flat for a cup of tea. They have known each other for five years.
Hoffman played Mr Hoppy, a quiet man who nurses both the Babylonian garden on his balcony and a secret love for his radiantly lovely and lively neighbour Mrs Silver (Dench) with equal passion. And then it ripples through your film, or your play or your book, animating all and subtly transforming everything from a prosaic good – or even great – into a thing of wonder. It just … appears, if you’re careful and if you’re lucky. You can’t splash it on to a scene and then stopper it to make sure you’ve got enough for the next take. You can’t measure it out by the yard and cut it off when you’ve got enough.
Although you can maximise your chances of being able to conjure it, charm is ineffable, alchemical. You could argue that with a pedigree like that nothing could have gone wrong, but it doesn’t work like that. I need another four hearts to contain all my love for last night’s Esio Trot (BBC1) – an utterly, completely, inescapably beguiling adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, directed by Dearbhla Walsh, narrated by James Corden and starring Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench.
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