The Almond and the Seahorse review – Rebel Wilson injects glam into brain injury drama

The actor impresses in a dialled-down performance but can’t rescue this unconvincing film about a woman whose husband has a traumatic brain-injury

Well-meaning but contrived and unconvincing, this is a British drama about how traumatic brain injuries can leave people with hidden disabilities and complex needs. In her first non-comedy role Rebel Wilson plays archaeologist Sarah, whose husband, Joe (the film’s co-director Celyn Jones), has had life-changing surgery to remove a brain tumour. Two years later he is unable to form new memories and is impulsive and disinhibited. A couple of scenes showing these behavioural changes feel a bit overdone: in one he walks up to a little kid in the street and hands him a doughnut; the boy’s mum kicks off big-time, and within seconds the whole street is filming it on smartphones.

Sarah still loves her husband, but he is not the man she married; his identity, and the things that make him him, have changed. Wilson is really impressive in these scenes, dialling it down and giving feeling to Sarah’s painful situation. Exhausted from caring for Joe she arranges a respite stay in a residential unit for brain-injury survivors, run by Meera Syal’s neuropsychiatrist Dr Falmer – where admission looks as easy as booking an Airbnb. “Pack a bag, we’ll make up a room.”