Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Military Wives’ on Hulu, a Feelgood Comedy About a Choir That Hits All the Familiar Notes

The story of the Military Wives Choirs is the exact stuff of inspired-by-a-true-story movies, in this case, the British feelgooder Military Wives, which is now on Hulu and on-demand services. The self-explanatory British group launched in 2011 and eventually spawned a hit single in Wherever You Are, which they performed for the Queen. The damn hell ass Queen! Since then, the charity organization expanded considerably, and now consists of 75 choirs at British military bases around the world. So if this movie isn’t a right jolly heartsome and warming 112 minutes, I’d be shocked. 

MILITARY WIVES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s deployment day on a military base in England. Soldiers are leaving for the milieu in Afghanistan, leaving their families behind to worry and get on with their lives and worry some more. Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas) is the type-A wife of a colonel, organizer of activities for spouses biding their time until their significant others return. She’s still grieving the loss of her soldier son in the war, but she’ll be damned if she’ll wear her heart on her sleeve. When she isn’t being a wee bit snooty and a little too harshly critical of others, she pops the cork on some wine and compulsively orders junk from the home shopping channel.

Lisa (Sharon Horgan) is the type-B wife of a newly promoted sergeant, rendering her the new head of the committee of female activities, or whatever it is. She rolls her eyes at uptight Kate, who won’t abscond her duties. Then Lisa goes home to unsuccessfully wrangle her teenage daughter (India Amarteifio). Kate projects her need for distraction upon all the women in the coffee klatch, and strongarms Lisa into forming a knitting club and a book club and a club where they get together and enjoy some strippers — and a singing club. Don’t call it a choir, yet. But before you know it, Kate’s dusting off her sheet music and Kate’s dragging out her Casio, prompting an epic hymns-vs.-The Human League battle for the ages.

As these things go, the choir is quite profoundly earthly before it’s heavenly. Inevitably, one member will emerge as the second coming of Susan Boyle (Gaby French), and one won’t be able to carry a tune and a tuna fish in a bucket with a pig in a poke (Lara Rossi), but they’re all working equally hard and giving it an earnest go. Types emerge: Sarah (Amy James-Kelly) is the young newlywed, Annie (Emma Lowndes) is the goofy lady delivering one-liners, etc. There will be creative folly to inspire laughter, and triumph to inspire warmth, and someone will get a dreaded knock on the door from two officials to inspire tears — you know, the stuff of life condensed to dramedy, all within our emotional grasp, except when this group of misfits gets the opportunity to perform at Royal Albert freaking Hall.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: “From the director of The Full Monty,” reads the one-sheet, so consider us properly prepped for British quirk-com formula. The movie is like Calendar Girls with less nudity blended with a version of Pitch Perfect scrubbed of its more bawdy tendencies.

Performance Worth Watching: Thomas and Horgan are more than capable of carrying this medium-weight fodder, winning us over with their attempts to color a bit outside the lines of the script. You’ll side with Horgan for playing a smidgen less to type; her character isn’t a rock or a frazzlebum, but something more interesting in-between.

Memorable Dialogue: Annie’s best zinger: “There are some benefits when they go away. I grow my pubes. It’s like Sherwood Forest by the time Malc gets home.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Few great things come without a little collaborative friction, which is a familiar truism Military Wives explores here and there, underscoring how creativity is a tried-and-true outlet for anxiety. Of course, the movie isn’t really about such things. It’s about women finding sorority in their community to cope with hardship. And even then, the movie has a much simpler goal: uplift. You will be warmed, or the movie will evaporate into mist.

However, it’s merely functional at all this stuff. Its character studies are slight, its situations and developments predictable. It’s nice to see the Thomas and Horgan characters avoid typical protagonist/villain dynamics, and neither pushes the other into a pool or slams a pie into one’s face. But neither are they rich or complex; they’re a bit too vaguely rendered to truly shake or stir the juice in our cockles. Instead, the mere existence of their unlikely success is used to guilt us into liking the movie. Its heart is in the right place, but it’s ultimately too bland and colorless to inspire much emotional elevation. It’s mildly amusing, and won’t inspire hearty laughs. Neither is it a cathartic weepie. It’s just… fine.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Military Wives lifts our spirits about an inch off the ground. Maybe that’s enough for some of us; maybe we should have slightly higher expectations.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream <em>Military Wives<em> on Hulu