Synopsis

Heart-warming, humorous and bittersweet, Ethel & Ernest is an affectionate tribute to an ordinary couple and an extraordinary generation. As well as a timeless story of love and devotion it is also a remarkable social history of the 20th Century. Adapted from Raymond Briggs’ graphic novel, it tells the story of Briggs’ parents Ethel and Ernest over a 50-year period from the late 1920s onward that encompasses Raymond’s birth, the Second World War, the creation of the welfare state, the post-war age of austerity and the relative affluence of the 60s. Ethel and Ernest accept misfortune with stoicism and are modest when luck is on their side. The voice work by BAFTA and Golden Globe winners, Brenda Blethyn and Jim Broadbent, makes their characters every bit as memorable. Bleythn captures Ethel’s prudishness and her social pretensions. Broadbent voices Ernest in the same cheery and sometimes waspish way.