Stan & Ollie
There’s a moment right at the start of this incredibly moving film where Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) walk through the back of a 1930s movie set. One of the staff does the Ollie hair-pull manoeuvre and Stan Laurel dutifully removes his hat and becomes his comedy self for a second. And it is Steve Coogan being Stan Laurel being Laurel’s on-screen persona—absolutely incredible. The pair are two very different men, but Laurel and Hardy at that time were among the most famous in the world. As a pair they worked like a comedy machine: carefully choreographed slapstick comedy as well as traditional song and dance. A famous dance sequence is recreated before the drama sets in: Stan wants to get more money from the studio because he feels that they’re not as valued as, say, Charlie Chaplin. Oliver Hardy was on a different contract, so when he went on to make a film without Laurel, a rift between the pair set in and lasted for decades. The film...