Love Sarah (2020)

Directed by: Eliza Schroeder | 99 minutes | drama | Actors: Rupert Penry-Jones, Celia Imrie, Shelley Conn, Bill Paterson, Shannon Tarbet, Denise Welch, Lucy Fleming, Grace Calder, Max Parker, Candice Brown, Kamontip Krissy Ashton, Sam Shoubber, Lati Gbaja

When you think of romantic comedies and light dramas set in the photogenic heart of London, you automatically think of Richard Curtis. The screenwriter/director pretty much created his own genre with films like ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ (1994), ‘Notting Hill’ (1999), ‘Love Actually’ (2003) and the first two films about Bridget Jones . Curtis attributes the long process of making a film to the fact that it is not easy to portray London at its most romantic and that not all his films hit their target equally powerfully. “The difference between having a great idea for a movie and delivering a great movie is like seeing a beautiful girl on the other side of the dance floor and being there when she gives birth to your third child: it is a very long journey.” German-born Eliza Schroeder, who has lived in London for years, has looked closely at Curtis and his work and was inspired by him for her debut film ‘Love Sarah’ (2020). However, the characters that she and the also debuting screenwriter Jake Brunger have created are less easy to close to your heart than Bridget Jones, William Thacker and Anna Scott or the motley crew from ‘Love, Actually’.

At the beginning of the film we see Sarah (Candice Brown) cycling through the London area of ​​Notting Hill. She is delighted, because soon she will receive the key to a beautiful building and she can finally realize her dream: her own bakery / lunchroom. But disaster strikes: Sarah never arrives at her final destination. We do not see exactly what is happening, but we can assume that she was killed in a collision. What is to be done with the plans she had now? Her best friend Isabella (Shelley Conn), with whom she would run her business, is no longer in the mood, because who is going to bake the pastries now that master pastry chef Sarah is gone? Clarissa (Shannon Tarbet), Sarah’s twenty-year-old daughter, has embarked on a promising dance career, but since her mother’s death she can no longer focus and also loses her boyfriend and her living space. She decides to visit her grandmother Mimi (Celia Imrie). Reluctantly, yes. She hasn’t been heard from for a long time. Mimi, a former trapeze dancer at a circus, was also at odds with her daughter Sarah. When she asked her mother to borrow money for her bakery, she refused and now regrets it. But her daughter died before she could make amends.

The three women decide together to make Sarah’s dream come true and take up the challenge. But who should take care of the pastries and cakes? Although Isabella followed the same culinary training as Sarah, she hasn’t baked a cake in years because she doesn’t think she’s good enough. Then suddenly Matthew (Rupert Penry-Jones) shows up, a heart-breaking top chef who in the distant past dabbled with Sarah and now offers to serve behind the stove. Isabella thinks it’s suspicious; Matthew can start working in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Why would he give up that top salary and accompanying prestige to work for them in their new-fangled lunchroom? Is there a catch there?

‘Love Sarah’ is like the pastries we are served: super sweet, airy and quickly digestible. The actors put their best foot forward and the experienced Celia Imrie in particular does what she can, but the characters are so thin that even a veteran like her can’t give them more depth. Also the predictability of the plot does not work in favor of ‘Love Sarah’; only once does the story not turn out the way we expected. What does work out well, certainly in comparison with the very white London from the (older) films by Richard Curtis, is the multicultural twist that Schroeder gives to her film. That fits well with this time, when the vast majority of Londoners were born somewhere other than the United Kingdom. Schroeder could have/should have done more with that fact, because the three women in the foreground are actually not that interesting at all. You also expect from such an English romantic comedy that there is enough to laugh, but the joke density is far too low and Bill Paterson, who as a confused inventor who happens to live opposite the bakery has to provide the comic relief, comes in the series “ Fleabag” really comes into its own much better than here.

Since this is only the first film for both director Eliza Schroeder and screenwriter Jake Brunger, we’ll be lenient with them. ‘Love Sarah’ is a nice attempt to revive the best work of Richard Curtis, which, however, suffers from poorly developed characters and a predictable and dull plot. Schroeder had better try to develop her own style, because there’s probably more to it than she shows here.