Land Ho!

Writer/directors Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz craft a charming, low-key movie in Land Ho, a gentle adventure tale about two ex-brothers-in-laws on the cusp of old age who take a trip to Iceland to get their groove back. The film deftly eschews the maudlin, cutesy, or condescending trappings that infect so many films about older folks. The two leads, Paul Eenhoorn and Earl Lynn Nelson create authentic, lived-in characters who are memorable and funny without ever dissolving into poor-man’s Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau shtick. The minimal plot and picturesque scenery allow the audience to absorb subtly rendered themes of friendship, aging, loneliness, and regret without ever loosing the buoyant feeling of discovery and love of life. The film arrives just one week before the American release of Steve Coogan’s and Rob Brydon’s sequel to The Trip, and may remind you a bit of that film as these two men travel from one scenic locale to another eating great meals along the way. While there are fewer comical sequences of dueling movies star impressions than in The Trip (I say few because there is some of this banter in Land Ho), this film feels more far substantial. I came away from Land Ho with a feeling that I’d actually been on a journey rather than just watched home videos from someone else’s.