Starring BAFTA nominee Timothy Spall, Phyllis Logan, Grace Calder and directed by Gillies MacKinnon
Every now and again, a film comes along that reminds us that we are not alone and that we’re all on this ride together. The British drama, The Last Bus, starring Timothy Spall (OBE), does exactly that, and will release in cinemas nationwide on Friday 8 April 2022.
Life is a journey and The Last Bus takes our old soldier, 90-year-old Tom Harper (Spall) on an epic trip from his home of fifty years, a remote village in the most northerly point of Scotland, back to the place he was born – close to England’s most southerly point. Battling against time, age and fate, desperate to keep a promise to his beloved wife Mary (Phyllis Logan), our intrepid hero Tom embarks on an odyssey, revisiting his past, connecting with the modern world and a diverse, multi-cultural Britain he has never experienced.
Using only local buses, with his pensioner’s ticket, Tom leaves his home in John o’ Groats, a location on Scotland’s northernmost point, and heads to Land’s End in the southwest England (a nearly 1 350 km journey), carrying his late wife’s ashes, to scatter them according to her wishes. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that the young Mary and Tom (played by Natalie Mitson and Ben Ewing, respectively) left their Land’s End home when an unspeakable family tragedy struck. Wanting to get as geographically far away as possible from their painful memories, the couple headed to Scotland, leaving their aching reality behind. Now, it’s up to Tom to recreate that epic journey in reverse and take Mary to her final resting place, armed with nothing other than maps and a bus pass that might have expired.
Along the way, he meets various colourful characters, and shows that despite his age, he hasn’t lost his character and fervently defends what he believes is right and wrong. His adventures get inadvertently recorded by the people he meets and helps, shared on social media, and by the end of his trip he has unwittingly become a social media celebrity.
“The Last Bus is a road movie, a film about love, loss and the power of the human spirit,” said Benjamin Cowley, CEO Gravel Road Distribution Group. “It touches on the theme of grief and coming to terms with one’s own mortality graciously with a storyline that is gentle, heartwarming and endearing,” he added.
