If its melodrama is unabashedly manipulative, it’s not altogether ineffective at eliciting waterworks.

Jackson and Caine wear their years proudly; there’s no vanity in their performance or their appearance. The couple’s eventual reunion is deep and real and, like their whole relationship, gorgeously ordinary.

While not remotely the best project of either Caine or Jackson’s career -- it wouldn’t crack the Top 10 -- the film is a slight but sweet ode to a particular flavour of Britannia that will leave its target audience in sentimental shambles.

An esteemed cast helps this bittersweet drama about healing, reconciliation, mortality, and the lasting emotional trauma of war from drifting into heavy-handed sentimentality.