Review: What We Did on Our Holiday

The underlying, redundant, and underwhelming theme of What We Did on Our Holiday is the pursuit of family unity at all costs. There’s one moment of inspired wildness, however, when a trio of grandchildren (Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge, Harriet Turnbull) gives their sainted grandfather, Gordie (Billy Connolly), the Viking funeral he privately requested when he passes away on a seaside excursion in Scotland. In this sequence, writer-directors Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, creators of the U.K. sitcom Outnumbered, convey a rudimentary fascination with how seriously children take fantasy, such as the oaths taken by knights and wizards. It’s a scant moment of psychological complexity in an otherwise bland, unfunny divorce comedy, which centers on Gordie’s son, Doug (David Tennant), trying to find a way to break the news of his ultimate split with Abi (Rosamund Pike), the mother of his children. There’s a lot of frivolous and dull dramatic turns throughout, including Doug’s atypically uptight brother, Gavin (Ben Miller), finding out that his wife, Margaret (Amelia Bullmore), is a YouTube sensation for having a public meltdown, or the tabloid frenzy that ensues when news of Gordie’s burial goes public. What We Did on Our Holiday ultimately plays like a handful of sitcom episodes strung together, blandly and indistinctly shot and cut into a narrative whose ramshackle aimlessness washes out the good will fostered by a few striking exchanges that benefit from Connelly’s inherent sense of warmth and Pike’s humorously frazzled directness. Subsequently, the film proves to be as memorable as a bad pitch meeting, produced with a lack of effort or personal investment that is apparent in nearly every single utterance.