15-year-old Daniel Bagnold (Earl Cave; Nick's son) is having to spend the summer in the countryside with his estranged mother Sue (Monica Dolan), who he openly hates. He thought he was staying in Florida with his father, a plan he was looking forward to, until this change. Now, amidst their constant arguing, they have to both find common ground again. Meanwhile, Sue finds romance with local history teacher Douglas Porter (Rob Brydon) and support in her masseuse friend Astrid (Tamsin Greig), with Daniel hanging out with his androgynous mate Kye (Elliot Speller-Gillott) and joining young metal band Skullslayer.
Well, so much for this apparently being a comedy. Based on Jeff Winterheart's 2012 graphic novel, Days of the Bagnold Summer marks the directorial debut of Simon Bird, former star of UK sitcoms The Inbetweeners and Friday Night Dinner (the latter of which also starred none other than Greig as his mum), but I didn't laugh once throughout it. Moreover, I found this to be just stuffed to the brim with cliches and really lacking in edginess. But what I found most offputting was Daniel; he is such a misanthropic, sullen teenage protagonist that I think even Holden Caulfield would've told him to lighten up. Cave also feels quite typecast in the role. As the story's most sympathetic character Dolan gives a powerful turn, with Greig making a suitably eccentric second banana to her, but the rest of the cast let these ladies down for me.
Belle and Sebastian's restrained but ultimately repetitive score also increased my boredom, and Bird's wife Lisa Owens' screenplay felt quite incongruously watered down (for a start there's not even any swearing and Daniel's a metalhead), with his direction striking me as very stagnant. I'm afraid these Days of the Bagnold Summer were ones I was impatiently counting down like Daniel does. 5/10.
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