3463. Our Ladies (2020)

Starring: Tallulah Greive, Abigail Lawrie, Rona Morison

Director: Michael Caton-Jones

Running Time: 105 mins

Our Ladies is a British film about a group of girls who travel from Fort William to the big city of Edinburgh with their Catholic school choir, but are far more interested in the men of the city than the sights.

I had an absolute whale of a time with this movie. Raunchy, fast-paced and fantastically funny while still telling a wonderfully heartfelt story, Our Ladies is a coming-of-age which really pushes the boundaries of the genre to great effect.

Following a group of Catholic schoolgirls whose minds are far more focused on the world of sex than God, their trip to Edinburgh is a brilliant blend of a comedy of errors and a window into the big, wide world that isn’t quite as simple as they seem to make out.

However, rather than making the leading quintet a bunch of ingenues, Our Ladies recognises the reality that teenage girls aren’t always totally innocent or ignorant of the adult world, and in some cases are actually far more adept at navigating trials presented to them.

Either way, the film is still full of wonderfully touching coming-of-age drama, particularly as we see the dynamic between a group of tight-knit school friends shift dramatically over one day, where they split up to explore Edinburgh, leading them onto different paths that will come to impact their entire lives.

It all sounds a bit cheesy when you put it like that, but the film really does have its heart in the right place, and it’s able to avoid a sense of cliché because of its absolutely fantastic sense of humour, full of raunchy comedy and fast-paced back-and-forth that had me in fits from start to finish.

Bolstered by genuinely brilliant performances from all of the lead actresses, this film manages to bring adult comedy into a teenage movie without it feeling totally crass, but equally without dumbing it down to a level that can help it get past censors or teenage viewers’ parents.

With so many laughs crammed in throughout, it’s remarkable how fast Our Ladies flies by, and although things to slow down a little in the slightly more serious final act, there really never is a dull moment here, one of the funniest coming-of-age films you’ll ever see. So, that’s why I’m giving Our Ladies a 7.9 overall.