Allelujah – BFI London Film Festival 2022

Writer: Heidi Thomas

Director: Richard Eyre

So much has changed since the stage premiere of Alan Bennett’s Allelujah in 2018 which focuses on geriatric care in a small Yorkshire hospital threatened with closure. The NHS is still chonrically underfunded and stretched to its limits but has since been subjected to one of the greatest tests the service has ever endured which went hand-in-hand with a national conversation about the care of elderly and vulnerable patients seen by government as necessary collateral during the pandemic. This film adaptation from Director Richard Eyre, written by Call the Midwife’s Heidi Thomas and screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2022, therefore exists in a slightly different context.

When his elderly father is admitted to the Bethlehem Hospital known as ‘The Beth’, healthcare management consultant Colin finds his views on the viability of the hospital challenged by the care and professionalism he sees on the wards and the groups of contented patients enjoying their time there. With experienced Nurse Gilpin about to receive a commendatory medal, can anything save The Beth and convince the politicians to invest in geriatric services.

Bennett’s play actually works far better on screen than it did on stage, the episodic nature of the different character parts and personalities as well as some of the technical devices are only enhanced by the freedom and immediacy of film to cut and easily shift between locations. The documentary crew interviewing patients and staff can show the viewer their material in shot without needing a projector while the crucial use of Mary’s ipad to capture her own footage is woven more seamlessly into the story when we can view her work.

Eyre has used the film to create an unabashed homage to the NHS that hones-in on the provision of care to new arrivals as well as longer-term residents, emphasising the humanity and individual stories in the lives of doctors, nurses and patients that so easily become statistics and problems to solve for health ministers. At just an hour and 40-minutes, this version of Allelujah does take the shears to Bennett’s overlong script so the more focused storytelling does sacrifice character depth and the ensemble dynamic which loses some of the play’s texture, not least in the relationship between David Bradley’s former pit man Joe and Russell Tovey’s Tory-supporting son. Both actors do a tremendous and meaningful job with what they have, but their interaction is cut to the bone.

It does seem a strange decision to stick with Bennett’s original and surprising ending however, a storyline that seems at odds with the celebratory tone of Allelujah, and one that isn’t quite offset by the additional of a valorising Covid codicil. It gives the film a dramatic conclusion of course but perhaps works less effectively now than it did in 2018.

Jennifer Saunders though is excellent in a rare straight dramatic role as an ordered but compassionate senior nurse not given to bursts of sentimentalism, while Bally Gill’s Dr Valentine is the epitome of good, attentive medicine. Bennett and Thomas attract the very best older performers include Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi and Julia MacKenzie who fill the film with pathos. Slightly confused about its message but Allelujah makes an improved transition to the screen.

Allelujah is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2022.