Fisherman’s Friends Review

Based on the story of an unlikely group of fishermen earning a record contract Fisherman’s Friends is the film tailored made for middle-class audiences across the British Isles.

Danny (Daniel Mays) is a London based record producer who goes to Cornwall for a stag weekend. Whilst in the picturesque village of Port Isaac the party discover a group of fishermen who sing sea shanties and Danny is tricked into signing the group. Despite Danny’s reservations he sets out to get the group a record contract and falls in love with the community and single mum Alwyn (Tuppence Middleton.)

Within the UK there have been many films marketed to older audiences because they are regular cinema-goers. Fisherman’s Friends is a part of this trend. The main cast members are younger than in films like Song for Marion, Quartet, and Finding Your Feet but there are elements from those films in Fisherman’s Friends. All these films focus on the art, have a group trying to find some success and set in or go to a nice location.

Fisherman’s Friends is a predictable, safe film. Audiences can guess the main developments, plot points and the trajectory of the film. One of the subplots in the film led me to think of the Nostalgia Critic’s hated clichés – ‘the liar revealed.’ Despite this Fisherman’s Friends is light-hearted fun with quite a bit of humour which the audience I was with enjoyed.

Whilst Fisherman’s Friends is based on a true story the film was fictionalised. Danny was a fictional character created for the film and he is the one who has the big arc. He’s a cocky city boy who only thinks about success and girls yet during the course of the film he finds what he really needs – settles down in a small town with a nice girl. The romantic subplot was similar to what happened to the A Street Cat Named Bob which added a fictional love story.  The Cornish setting makes a film a free advert for the Cornish Tourism Board.

The Fisherman’s Friends themselves were indistinguishable. Only three members are characterised – Jim (James Purefoy), Jago (David Hayman) and Rowan (Sam Swainsbury). Jim was Alwyn’s dad and the de facto leader of the group so Danny had twice the reason to win him over. He is a character who has been hurt in the past so was wary around Danny. Jago is connected because he is Jim’s father, Alywn’s grandfather and his wife works as a barmaid at the local pub.

Rowan’s plight plays an important part in the film. He is the owner of the pub and has a new baby. But he is drowning in debt and is the man most desperate for the group to succeed.

The film is made up of stereotypes. Mays is a playing a Cockney lad who has to use his gift-of-the-gab to try and convince the group and record companies. The group is how you would picture fishermen would look like and they spoke about Cornish pride. The group spoke with thick Cornish accents when in real life the group didn’t have strong accents. To be fair the group do play on the country and fishermen stereotypes and traditions so they could take the piss of Danny.

It is weird that everyone around Alwyn speaks with Cornish accents but she and her daughter had typical Southern English accents. Noel Clarke who plays Danny’s boss was an arrogant American and he spoke with a terrible accent.

Fisherman’s Friends is a paint-by-numbers film that a cynic would say it was made by committee. It does the job for the target audience and will make for decent comfort viewing on a wet Sunday afternoon.