It's 'Saving Grace?' How sweet the smoke!

By Diana Aleman

Saving Grace is, at first, an innocuous enough movie about transcending tragedy in a typical charming British fishing village. Grace (Brenda Blethyn) is a middle-aged gardener, newly widowed, coping with her husband's death by bustling around the house waiting on others, while occasionally dropping the requisite plate to indicate her troubled state of mind. But wait: is that the town doctor smoking a joint behind Grace's house with the hired help?

It is—although Matthew (Craig Ferguson) is more accurately the soon-to-be-fired help. A month after her husband dies (by jumping out of a plane), Grace finds herself bankrupt. Her house, mortgaged, is to be seized and auctioned off. Predictably, she turns over her husband's pictures to hide his face and inhales her cigarette ferociously, ashing on the photos of the recently deceased in the process.

Film

Saving Grace Directed by Nigel Cole Starring: Brenda Blethyn, Craig Ferguson York Square Cinema

Matthew, meanwhile, is in the throes of his own crisis: his marijuana plants, hidden in the woods behind the vicarage, are failing to thrive. He seeks Grace's expert advice and well-known green thumb; she, in return, transfers one of his plants to her greenhouse, nursing it back to health. Grace justifies her seemingly out-of-character involvement in Matthew's illegal business by telling him, "I'm a gardener. These are sick plants."

Not for long. Soon Grace is tending and clipping, repotting (into hot pots and cake pans), and tossing the flowers from her former life out of the greenhouse to make room for her new life: hemp plants, growing lamps, and profit. Throw in the illegality of the venture, Matthew's secretly pregnant girlfriend, and Grace's increasingly dire financial situation, and Saving Grace becomes a tangled web of typical mildly humorous fun-for-the-whole-family moviemaking, crisis that leads to crime, and, ultimately, happiness. Saving Grace is no stoner film, but it's not just another Waking Ned Devine either.

There are, naturally, the givens in any film that centers around marijuana—even one as consciously apolitical as this: the billowing smoke pouring out a previously closed door, the little old ladies getting high with the ensuing munchies, the nefarious drug lord living in a windowless vault. Cynical viewers will be disappointed by these hackneyed moments.

COURTESY FINE LINES FEATURES "Hey bloke, this 'high tea' is the best time I've had since Wimbledon!"

They will be further dismayed to find themselves touched at the strangest moments—for example, Matthew and Grace sharing Grace's first joint from a spot overlooking the sea, falling back with laughter against the backdrop of the rugged English coastline. For the first time since her husband's death and her own sudden bankruptcy, Grace's smile isn't forced, and it's not simply because of the drugs. She's happy because she's doing something new and illicit while still pursuing her old hobby of tending to plants. Furthermore, she has a purpose and she has a companion, Matthew, with whom she can talk to and confide in.

When, finally, everybody just gives up, gives in and gets stoned, the message isn't about the uplifting nature of pot, but about the members of a community that help each other out in times of crisis. This message is exemplified by the ladies in the store who don't charge Grace when she can't afford to pay, as well as the police officer who turns a blind eye to Grace's illegal business simply because he knows she desperately needs the money.

Saving Grace tries not to be a film about pot but about seeking and finding happiness and stability. Without politicizing the issue, the film implies that stability cannot be found in an illegal venture that could be discovered at any moment. Grace inevitably must find a way to sustain herself some other way. Like an O. Henry story, the film has a surprise ending made only slightly unsatisfying by its implausibility. Unfortunately, it is all wrapped up a little bit too tidily, and Grace ends up a little less likable for the wear. Luckily, we are left knowing that, no matter what, everybody in the village is on Grace's side, toasting her successes and standing by each other no matter what happens—stoned or sober.

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