
If anyone can put her spirit into this it’s you. Twentysomething dancer Clarissa (Shannon Tarbet) wants to honour her late mother Sarah’s (Candice Brown) memory by opening the bakery she was about to open with childhood friend Isabella (Shelley Conn) when she was tragically killed while cycling to recce their new premises. Trouble is there isn’t enough money. She moves in with her estranged grandmother, former trapeze artist Mimi (Celia Imrie) who is reluctant but then the three women pitch their talents and her money together, attracting Sarah’s dishy Michelin-starred ex Matthew (Rupert Penry-Jones) as the chief baker – and he may or may not be Clarissa’s father. Neighour Felix Rosenbaum (Bill Paterson) is a surveillance fan whose fancy turns to Mimi just as the gang hit on an idea to attract more customers and a Time Out review suddenly beckons … Imagine her baking that for you every morning with bacon and eggs – and sex. A thoughtful and low key study of grief written by Jake Brunger from a story by Mahalia Rimmer and director Eliza Schroeder, this is a beautifully made film set in London’s Notting Hill. If it lacks a dynamic centre there are compensations – not least in the performances by Imrie, Conn and Tarbet, the joint protagonists. Imrie is always worth watching, a pinch of salt and an amused twinkle never far from her features – here she needs to reconnect with her late daughter in a concrete fashion and (the very talented TV actress) Conn needs to repurpose her life which is falling away with the death of her best friend. Tarbet’s story isn’t as well dramatised but it’s a delicate performance, the dope-smoking ballerina wannabe who can’t make a go of anything, even a relationship that fails and renders her homeless. If the back story isn’t exposed in the melodramatic style we might expect in such a maternal narrative, and it never gorges on itself in the way its spiritual sister Chocolat does (another film about creating your own community), the complications arising from past and current romances, paternity and the idea about baking yourself out of existential and actual depression are movingly articulated. And it’s a nice reference for fans of TV’s Great British Bake Off to have winner Brown as Sarah, glimpsed in the final scene. Shot by Aaron Reid and designed by Anna Papa. Directed by Eliza Schroeder and dedicated to Sonya Schroeder. We make our bakery a home from home