79%42 reviews
Funny Cow to the ranks of Yorkshire’s standout wares – alongside everything from tea to steel to Ken Loach’s Kes, plus bands such as Pulp and the Arctic Monkeys. The list goes on. However boiling kettles, grim childhoods and mournful tunes abound in this 1970s and 1980s-set portrait of an unnamed woman (Maxine Peake) trying to etch out a life that isn’t miserable, namely by inching her way onto Britain’s stand-up comedy circuit.
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It's a tough, passionate and compassionate account of survival at all costs (what would you do, and say, to escape a desperate life?) and a troubling portrait of an unsavoury element of national character that still very much exists.
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It's...honest about the cesspools of knee-jerk racism and other forms of bigotry that passed for humour in the bad old days - some of which even the heroine dredges up to make her mark.
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There is no moral, and in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, there is no hugging, no learning. There is just a hypnotically belligerent performance from [Maxine] Peake, whose anti-heroine explodes like a firework, burning herself to an ashy crisp.
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As a character piece, it is going through the motions, and as a comedy, it dies quietly.
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Funny Cow is one of the best British features of the year so far: an abrasive, tender and continually surprising affair whose comic moments sit next to scenes of irredeemable bleakness.
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One of those intriguing but raggedy films that ultimately adds up to less than the sum of its promising parts...
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Somewhat melodramatic, but truthful, and the core relationships, themes and emotions that run through the film are wholly universal.
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A fractured jumble of a fictional rise-to-fame (sort of) story that's held together by a powerhouse performance from Maxine Peake.
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