“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

These words form perhaps the simplest but effective summary of what friendship represents – and surprisingly, it is not a contemporary quote, but rather found in the musings of the great philosopher Aristotle, who spoke about the concept of friendship with such beautiful and evocative simplicity. However, we can easily tweak it slightly to refer to a slightly larger group of bodies, since there is something about a small set of friends that go through life together, despite whatever differences they may have, that makes it profoundly beautiful. This is explored in extraordinary detail in Last Orders, where Fred Schepisi, one of our great journeyman filmmakers who has rarely received his due despite a strong body of work, adapts the novel by Graham Swift, which was certainly not an easy task, considering how the source material is a layered text that has multiple narrators and takes place over several different timelines, and was originally contained in prose that is almost impenetrable in terms of the sheer poetry with which Swift constructs these stories. It tells the story of a group of older men who meet in their local pub in a small English hamlet, but for once in their life, this meeting isn’t one intended to bring joy or celebration, but rather a more sombre affair, as the fourth member of their quartet has recently died, and to honour his final wish, they accompany his son across the country to scatter his ashes in the ocean. Along the way, they bicker and reminisce in equal measure, thinking back on the life of their good friend and the experiences they had together. Driven by a sense of simplicity and built on the foundation of exploring certain themes with incredible precision, Last Orders is an incredible and poignant film with a lot of heart and soul, enough to keep us invested and genuinely engaged with what is being conveyed throughout this wonderful story.

Last Orders is the kind of film that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination in terms of its themes, and while it may seem redundant to mention it yet again, this story centres squarely on the experiences of a group of men as they navigate fifty years of friendship. The film is told in three distinct timelines (as well as a few subordinate ones beneath them) – the 1930s, when the four men at the heart of the film met each other while serving in the Second World War, the period just before their friend’s death, and then the aftermath, which is the framing device around which most of the story is told. The use of flashbacks is prominent but never overwhelming, and Schepisi leaps between the periods with incredible grace, showing the ebb and flow of this companionship, which is shown to be a beautiful but challenging experience for this quartet, especially since each one of them has chosen to follow a different path in life. Ultimately, something we all learn at some point in life is that friendship is not always built on having the same interests, but rather sharing some qualities that bind us together, even if it is something as simple as wasting away many evenings in the same quaint pub, which is the place where many laughs were provoked and tears shed. These four men are all profoundly different, yet they feel a sense of genuine brotherhood based on their shared past, which has not always been easy, since they have all faced severe hardship at some point, and even their friendship itself has changed over time. This is the beauty of this film, which is as much about these four men sharing experiences as it is the human condition as a whole, which is rendered in vivid detail throughout this film, showing the challenges each one of the four has faced, and how they ultimately come together in a time of tragedy and attempt to scrape together some sense of bravery to get through what is clearly a major loss for each one of them. A good friend is difficult to find, so this film does well in showing the value of holding onto those connections as far as possible, since they are the bonds that stay with us forever.

Interwoven with the theme of friendship is that of memory, which is as integral to the identity of Last Orders as the more obvious themes. Since the film is told primarily in flashback, leaping between timelines, we find that it is focused on piecing together the various memories of these characters, both the core quartet that form the foundation, as well as additional characters in the form of the deceased’s estranged son and long-suffering wife, with whom he had a challenging and contentious relationship that was severely tested by his own sense of hubris. Memory is a common theme in art – there is something profoundly moving about a work that is willing to dive beneath the surface of a character, exploring their past and showing how they got to a particular point. A lot of it has to do with chance, and this film never implies that these men were always destined to know each other, but rather their friendship came about as a result of a happy accident, one that they never regret and instead look on fondly as the foundation for a lifelong connection. It can sometimes be extremely heartbreaking to see these characters thinking back on previous experiences, especially since there is a sense of genuine empathy that goes into the creation of this story. However, there isn’t a moment where Last Orders feels overwrought or unnecessarily heavy-handed in its message, and the director makes sure that he handles absolutely everything with the degree of elegance and respect the source material deserved. There was always the risk that this film would be far too emotional, to the point of being saccharine, but Schepisi is a professional who knows how to navigate that narrow boundary between emotions with incredible skill, and the result is a powerful and poignant portrait of friendship, as seen through the overlapping memories of various characters as they undergo a journey of self-reflection, diving deep into their shared experiences and finding the value in the moments that may not have seemed important at the time, but yet tend to mean the mean to them after the fact.

A film like Last Orders is only going to be as strong as its weakest link. Mercifully, you would struggle to find a bad performance anywhere in this film – arguably, the younger versions of these characters aren’t always strong, but they still deliver good performances that correlate directly with the exceptional work being done by the veterans, which tend to be the most alluring aspect of this ensemble. Michael Caine plays the deceased Jack, a man who lived his life with calculated recklessness, and died (quite ironically) at the exact moment where he achieved exactly what he needed to get out of whatever rut in which he spent the last half-century. He is joined by Bob Hoskins, Tom Courtney and David Hemmings, who are just as exceptional as Caine, both in their capacity as veterans of British cinema and in their individual performances, which are rich and beautiful, oscillating between humour and pathos in a way that will leave even the most cynical of viewers utterly moved. They are joined by Ray Winstone and Helen Mirren as equally important characters whose relationship with the deceased is given a good degree of attention as well. The brilliance of Last Orders comes in the fact that it is a true ensemble effort – every one of the actors is given moments in which they can dig deep and explore their characters, and none of them stands out more than the other, which is an incredible and powerful approach that was only possible with a good cast. Perhaps our attention is most drawn to Hoskins and Caine, since they are at the heart of the film, their friendship being the catalyst for most of the story – but the manner in which Courtenay, Hemmings, Winstone and Mirren are woven into the narrative only proves how much the story depended on an ironclad ensemble that could all deliver, whether in moments of isolation or when acting across from each other. A good cast can function as a single homogenous entity while still being independently strong, and it would be difficult to find a film that achieves this more effectively and with as much attention to detail.

A beautiful and poetic film about the power of friendship, Last Orders is an incredible work that touches our souls in a truly profound and meaningful way, and explores themes that may seem obvious on the surface, but have such incredible profundity and complexity that it becomes less about the story itself and more about what it represents. It’s a wonderful, complex film with a strong sense of humour and a lot of heartfelt commentary, all of which is filtered through a tremendous cast that work hard to bring these ideas to life, each one of them anchoring a certain portion of the story with their strong, willful performances that are honest, genuinely moving and profoundly captivating, each one developed beautiful and with such incredible precision. Perhaps it doesn’t quite capture the beauty of Swift’s prose in the original novel, since there are some elements of such a story that need to be experienced through the written word, especially the evocative language used, and how he tells the story through multiple narrators, where the intersection in their voices plays a big part in the development of the story. Yet, it is still an excellent effort, and it avoids many cliches that would normally be associated with this genre and what it represents. There isn’t a moment of misplaced emotion; everything is tenderly placed in order to create a beautiful and distinct environment in which so many beautiful ideas are able to emerge. Last Orders is a very small film, but it has a worldview that is much wider than the simple confines of the story can ever capture, and it goes to places within the human mind that we may not even be able to comprehend fully – but yet this is all part of the beauty and complexity that drives this film and makes it so wonderfully unique and touching.