jotix100 The life of Annie Mary changes completely after the death of her mother. Annie Mary, who had a beautiful voice, suddenly stopped trying to sing opera. Her life in the small Welsh town is boring, to say the least. To make matters worse, her best friend, Bethan Bevan, is struck by cancer. Annie Mary, who is a loyal friend, wants to help her sick friend go to Disneyland.Annie Mary's father, Jack, has a bakery in the town. We see him as he makes his deliveries in a Luciano Pavarotti's mask and singing in his beautiful tenor opera arias that are much admired by the people of the area. When he suffers a stroke, Annie Mary's life goes into a tail spin. As a caretaker, Annie Mary is useless. As much as she tries to make a go at being a baker, she never makes it work. In desperation she turns to Mrs. Madoc, her father's girlfriend, to buy her out.As a way to help Bethan, Annie Mary and a few of the town's women, she decides to enter a contest in Cardiff. They have prepared to do a number of the Village People, "Y.M.C.A.", but they are horrified when they arrive at the hall where the competition is going to be held, and watch a group of men doing exactly their number, much better. The women decide to change their act into a sort of "Three Tenors" aria in which Annie Mary, wearing an inflated rubber suit, floats into the audience. Needless to say, they win, but emboldened by the turn of events in her life, she gambles all the money into a horse race and loses it.Annie Mary becomes Ogw's most hated person. What's more the trip to Disneyland is too late for Bethan, who suffers a relapse. It's at this point that Annie Mary finds her voice again and she gives her friend a rendition of Puccini's aria "O mio bambino caro" in a shaky voice that gets better as the scene changes to another location.Sara Sugarman, the writer and director of this screwball comedy was lucky in casting one of the most talented actresses working in films these days: Rachel Griffiths. Ms. Sugarman gets a tremendous performance out of Ms. Griffiths, who shows her range in a role she was born to play. Jonathan Pryce is also excellent as the distant father who can't see eye to eye with his daughter.Although sometimes the accents get a bit hard to follow, the luminous presence of Ms. Griffiths and the sure direction of Ms. Sugarman make us overlook that minor problem and enjoy the comedy.

neithernor2000 You would think a movie featuring an inflatable Pavarotti impersonator, a seventy-year old woman in a Tina Turner costume belting out "What's Love Got To Do With It" and a scratch and sniff bible goes over the top with loud humor. That is not the case with VERY ANNIE MARY. It is a small film, quirky, tender, and funny in a mostly quiet way. Rachel Griffiths is excellent as a homely girl with a tyrant of a father who dresses her in her grandmother's clothes. The Scottish town they live in is determined to raise enough money to send a terminally ill teenager to Disneyland. I won't tell you anything more about it other than to rent the DVD or look for it on the Independent Film channel. You'll be very glad you did.

tim-894 I had never heard of this film but it was in my local library in north London so I decided to give it a try. It took a while to get into it and at first I found most of the characters annoying; either caricatures or buffoons. But it sort of grew on me. It is certainly far better than a good deal of the Hollywood dross that is foisted on us because of the distribution system in the UK. Quirky, funny, sometimes irritating but mostly amusing, this made me long to go back to Wales. It seemed to get to the heart of the country in the way that The Full Monty got into the heart of Sheffield. The two gay guys doing "Annie Get Your Gun" was one of many very funny, and touching, original little scenes with which this film is filled. I think this movie may well grow as it ages and eventually be seen as a little classic. I hope so because, at least for one afternoon, it really made me smile.

gpadillo Very Annie Mary took me by shock and surprise. Rachel Griffiths gives her finest performance – and though the film is 3 years old, she hasn't as yet done anything quite as satisfying as her brilliant turn as Annie. 33 year old, Annie comes off as mildly retarded, and, in the truest sense of the word, she is, since life pretty well ended at 15. That's when Annie Mary, who wanted nothing more than to be an opera singer, won a vocal competition judged by Pavarotti who told her she would have a marvelous career, and she's given a grant to study in Milan. That same week, her mother took ill, died, and Annie was forced to give up her dreams to stay and take her mother's place in the home. Her father accomplishes his means by humiliating Annie into believing she isn't special, she isn't, in fact, anything at all.As Dad, Pugh, Jonathan Pryce is terrific as. Selfish and cold hearted almost two decades after he's shattered her dreams, the man still berates his daughter calling her talentless, useless, stupid, slovenly and cuts her to her heart laughing at her "what man would ever have you?" He forces her to dress in his own dead mother's shapeless, matronly as he constantly tells Annie how beautiful her mother was. The film opens with Pryce singing Puccini's Nessun Dorma from a mounted speaker system atop his bakery delivery truck as he drives through the Welsh countryside. As the camera pulls in, we see Pugh "The Voice of the Valley" in a rubber Pavarotti mask and wearing an Pavarotti sized tuxedo. Beautiful and hilarious all at once. While not slapstick Griffiths' Annie Mary is prone to extreme clumsiness – often moving (especially when running) like an excited 5 year old, all stiff arms and awkwardness. She's adorable. Clumsiness leads to minor accidents, falls down stairs, running into doors and other objects – each moment is hilarious yet does something to endear this ugly duckling even more to us. When Dad suffers a stroke, Annie Mary is forced to take care of the household – with riotous and disastrous results. The heart of the film centers around Annie's relationship the village and her best friend, Bethan, a bedridden teenager. The village wish for Bethan is to send her to Disneyland. Bethan's only wish is to hear Annie sing. Through an unlikely series of events(including a talent competition, a bouncing Pavarotti, the Village People and the Welsh Grand National Horserace and the entire village turning against Annie) Bethan – and the village – get to hear Annie Mary find her voice again. It is a magical moment blending pathos, forgiveness, hope, heartbreak and Puccini, as Annie Mary finds not only her voice, but the means to carry on. Very Annie Mary is easily one of the most joyous DVD discoveries I've made.p.