Tomorrow Morning: Film Review
I love musicals – both on the stage and screen – so I was excited by the prospect of seeing West End stars Samantha Barks and Ramin Karimloo together in the new movie musical Tomorrow Morning – but I was sorely disappointed.
The film takes place across two timelines, set 10 years apart. The first shows Cat (Barks) and Will (Karimloo) happy and in love and excited to get married the following morning. Ten years later, they are separated and constantly arguing about their 10-year-old son and their fancy penthouse ahead of a hearing to make it all official the following morning.
When it comes to musicals, you’ve got to have catchy, exciting numbers. That is a must! Frankly, Tomorrow Morning doesn’t have any. Each number is as unmemorable as the last and I can’t recall any lines off the top of my head. They went in one ear and straight out the other, although I do remember hearing “Kim Jong-un” used as a lyric at one point because I thought that was hilarious. They also lack visual pizzazz so it all feels a bit flat.
The narrative is essentially a series of music videos strung together with some spoken scenes in between. There is no nuance to be found here either – all of the flashback scenes are happy, joyful, fun and brightly lit, while the present scenes are grey, bleak and moody. It’s all very obvious and predictable.
Nick Winston, who has years of experience in the theatre, makes his movie directorial debut with this adaptation of his own stage production. Screen acting and stage acting are quite different and I felt like the two leads were still stage acting (although Karimloo fared better). This isn’t helped by the mediocre and heavy-handed script but I wanted them to tone it down. However, Fleur East is a welcome and cheery addition as Cat’s best friend India and Joan Collins and Omid Djalili are good fun in their cameos.
I really wanted to like this more so I could support a low-budget movie but I cannot endorse something so lacklustre.
In selected cinemas from Tuesday 6th September