On a Clear Day | DVD Review

If you’ve ever entertained the thought of swimming across the English Channel – and who hasn’t, right? – then On a Clear Day is essential viewing as a training film on how not to go about it. Personal demons, family secrets…these are things that one would want to deal with before focusing on such a monumental task.

In On a Clear Day Peter Mullan (Braveheart, Trainspotting) delivers a particularly strong performance as Frank, a man in his mid-fifties who has just been laid off from his job at the local shipbuilder. After thirty-six years of twelve-hour shifts, it’s understandable that Frank wouldn’t know what to do with all his free time and that his family feels estranged from him. Frank’s method of dealing with (avoiding) his situation is to swim. A lot. On a suggestion from his friend Danny (hobbit Billy Boyd as comic relief) he decides he’s going to swim across the English Channel, but not tell his family he plans to do this. He enlists the help of Chan, the local fish and chip shop owner, to train him. Convinced that Frank is serious, his friends rally around him and promise to keep his secret from his wife (Brenda Blethyn) and househusband son (Jamie Sives). Some comedic antics ensue and as we see Frank and his friends bond closer together, we also see his family being pushed further away. Frank obviously has issues he needs to deal with and he seems to think that this swim will solve them. Needless to say, in such a small community secrets of this magnitude are not easy to keep and word eventually gets around to Frank’s wife and son about his plan. At first Frank denies it to his son Rob, who sees this as the last straw in a lifetime of feeling shunned by his “da” because he feels like Frank blames him for the drowning death of Joe’s brother when they were young. With everything out in the open, the stage is set for the denouement of the film. Whether or not Frank realizes his goal, you get the feeling that everything will work out for the best in the end. After all, isn’t that what this genre (Brit feel-good comedies like Rory O’Shea Was Here, Dear Frankie, and the one that started it all, The Full Monty) is all about?

I came away from the film happy and I will even admit to tearing up a bit at one point, but on further reflection I was resentful because I realized that I was mildly ‘forced’ to feel this way. Nothing in this film leaves anything up to the viewer, and I’m a moviegoer who enjoys when a filmmaker gives the audience the option of forming their own opinions about characters and motives. On a Clear Day is a tidy little film, perhaps too tidy for its own good.

First-time director Gaby Dellal manages to make everything feel real in Alex Rose’s story of working-class family life in Glasgow, from Frank’s relationships with his wife, son, and friends to his guilt over being unable to save his other son’s life. Even the humour is realistic. There’s a scene near the end of the film when the five friends are sleeping in a trailer the night before Frank’s big swim when one of them passes gas to many childish giggles and comments. I can attest that this does indeed happen when you put five guys together in close quarters for any amount of time. This kind of realism is commendable, but the film ultimately falters for the fact that Dellal and Rose seem to feel the need to hold your hand throughout, guiding you to a conclusion that really couldn’t have played out any other way, considering the genre.

On a Clear Day looks and sounds great on disc, but apart from the Dolby 5.1 sound and the Spanish, French, and English subtitle availability, there’s not one bonus feature to speak of. No commentary track, no making-of, no history of people swimming the English Channel, no interview with a psychologist examining the father-son dynamic of the film and how a part of each of them died when the other son drowned, etc.
Actually, now that I mention it, it’s probably best that there are no bonus features on the disc. For this addition by subtraction, the disc is saved from a rating of 0 stars.

Strong performances from the entire cast and some funny moments make for an enjoyable film to watch, but a half hour after viewing On a Clear Day I felt like I had been led through the film and it left a bad taste in my mouth…kind of like a fart in a trailer.

Movie rating – 2.5

Disc Rating – 1