Now I don’t know much about Laurel and Hardy so I went into this pretty blind, and I loved it!

Stan & Ollie follows the comedy duo during the later years of their career. They have had their successes and now are back 16 years later doing a tour around the UK and hoping to score a movie deal out of it too.

Stan is the doer. He comes across as very motivated and has a lot of great ideas for new scenes, sketches, and jokes. Ollie seems to take more of a back seat, being part of the duo, but taking Stan’s lead. This dynamic works very well on screen though and gives you a lot of character depth with not a lot of information.

Throughout this movie we see the duo go through highs and lows and this comes to a head when Ollie suffers a heart attack at a beauty contest. His wife is adamant he won’t perform again and Stan refuses to continue the tour without Ollie expecting it all to end pretty abruptly. But, in one final hurrah for the movie, Ollie pushes through his pain and joins Stan on stage one last time even performing a dance they had choreographed together, a dance Ollie hadn’t performed in a while and sang a song to instead as he was becoming unfit.

This did bring a tear to my eye. To see the pride in their friendship and all their hard work and knowing no matter what trials life may bring they always have each other. It’s a gorgeous story about friendship that is wonderfully shot and feels very vintage. From the costume to the settings to even the camera work and dialogue, it all fits together into a great film that young and old can enjoy whether they know Laurel and Hardy or not.

This has also opened up their work to me and has me inspired to search for their old slapstick bits on TV. Although it may be outdated and not very funny for today’s standards I think it still has its place and is still enjoyable to watch.

What do you think of Stan & Ollie?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding