Water

Dir: Dick Clement

1985

*****

Water is a classic example of a brilliant film mistaken for a turkey, purely due to poor ticket sales. It's true that it's financial loss hit HandMade Films hard but there really isn't wrong with it. HandMade Films is something of a British success story. When EMI pulled out their funding of Monty Python's The Life of Brian just one week before filming, friend and fan of the comedy group George Harrison re-mortgaged his house and produced the film under the label he created with business partner Denis O'Brian. The pair went on to make some of the greatest British films of all time together, until Harrison found O'Brian to have stolen £12 million from him over a 12 year period and the company was sold to Paragon Entertainment. They made The Long Good Friday, Time Bandits, Mona Lisa, How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Withnail among many, and I think 1985's Water is as good as any of those films. The story takes place on the fictional Caribbean island of Cascara. The Cascara plant is known for its laxative properties, which is an indication of the film's tongue in cheek humour, but I can see how it could have been mistaken as a toilet-humour comedy, particularly by botanists. It isn't though, it's actually quite a dry satire. Michael Caine plays the proud Governor of the forgotten island, who sends word to England, demanding that they send more funds. He is surprised then when they send Sir Malcolm Leveridge (played by the great Leonard Rossiter in his last feature performance) within only a few days. Expecting good news, the island puts on a huge welcome celebration, only for Sir Malcolm to get straight back on the boat after reporting that the island will essentially be cut off by the British government within the next few weeks. Meanwhile, an American company, filming a TV advert on the island, discover a water spring on an old site they used to drill for oil at. Using the filming as a cover they quickly find ways of trying to bottle and sell the water off the island. All parties soon get word of this and hilarity, hijinks and kidnapping plots follow suit. Brenda Vaccaro is brilliant as the Governor's wife, desperate to get off the island and enter into high-society by any means possible and Billy Connolly is hilarious as an island native and freedom fighter, born of the island's resident Scottish Reverend. Dick Shawn has a great cameo as an aging actor employed to advertise the water on the island and the great Fred Gwynne plays the straight-talking oil baron considering the move to bottled water. Valerie Perrine plays environmentalist and the daughter of Gwynne's oil baron and the Governor’s new love interest. The film also features the brilliant Maureen Lipman providing her famous Margaret Thatcher impersonation. It's madcap, crazy and has a billion things happening at once and it's absolutely brilliant. Firmly poking fun at The British Empire and the commonwealth in modern times and the then recent invasions of the Falkland Islands and Grenada. It's a bawdy 80s comedy in the way that only bawdy 80s comedies can be but it does have an element of Ealing Comedy about it, especially as it spoofs Passport to Pimlico. It's been somewhat rejected by its writer and director Dick Clement but then any fond memories were probably overshadowed by the many financial issues the film had before, during and after the film was made. It's such a shame that it has become forgotten as I think it should be regarded as something of a classic. I can't fault it, especially as I believe its faults are also its best bits to some degree. It's both clever and silly at the same time, always funny, with some brilliant performances by a cast to die for.