Greatest Days - Movie Musical Review

Do you remember the days of being a teenager when music and the pop area you loved meant so much more than you could ever imagine now? Do you remember rushing home to watch Top of the Pops, or turning up the volume in attempt to block out everything that is happening around you? Do you remember the friendships built on that adoration of that one band you loved more than anything? That was Rachel, Claire, Debbie, Heather and Zoe, and their love of The Boys, with Greatest Days creating a boy band loosely based on the heyday of Take That, filing the story with several of their much loved hits.

Fast forward and a now grown Rachel (Aisling Bea) wins tickets to attend a reunion concert by The Boys and takes an emotional rollercoaster of a trip down memory lane. She sets out to find her teenage years friends and to rediscover the nostalgia of the time they last saw the boys together, but reconnecting after a long time may not be as simple as she first thought.

Bea, alongside Jayde Adams as Claire, Alice Lowe as Heather and Amaka Okafor as Zoe impress as they make for a believable, relatable group, each able to illustrate how time flies and how the events of childhood can massively impact adulthood. As the storyline jumps back and forth between now and then, foreshadowing is cleverly used for character development with the audience able to see parts of themselves in these girls and their actions.

Lara McDonnell, Jessie Mae Alonzo, Eliza Dobson, Nandi Hudson and Carragon Guest play the younger versions of the girls, each excited for the future, driven and determined be that to either marry a member of The Boys or escape an unhappy household.

Adapted for the screen from the stage musical The Band, which had a prime time television competition show to find the boys of the band, the renamed Greatest Days appeals to both fans of Take That and jukebox musical fans. And for jukebox musicals, where plots and characters can be a little flimsy, there is decent depth and development here for something that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Alongside the main cast, there is a lovely then from Marc Woodson as Rachel’s long term partner Jeff, kind and warm hearted. And, of course, we have the The Boys themselves. Aaron Bryan, Joshua Jung, Mervin Noronha, Mark Samaras and Dalvin Cory appear almost Greek chorus in style, popping up here, there and everywhere like supportive shadows in Rachel’s life, always there when she needs them.

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Whilst Greatest Days is primarily about friendship and the passing of time, it can also be looked at as a love letter to the healing power of music. With scenes illustrating its ability to distract and soothing and how music has the words you don’t; it may make you think about the songs, the bands and the pop stars that have played a role in your life in a whole different way.

For a film that took a much enjoyed stage  jukebox musical and a small budget, combining the two into a shiny movie musical, Greatest Days provides a couple of hours of escapism easily enjoyed with relatable characters and great songs. Groundbreaking? No. Good fun? Most certainly.

I watched Greatest Days on Amazon Prime.