Despite having made films in her own language, the Spanish director Isabel Coixet is best known for the movies that she has made in English. Her 2003 feature My Life Without Me was the one that gave her an international reputation and in it the Canadian actress Sarah Polley gave an outstanding performance. Indeed, it is the quality of the acting in Coixet’s films that is their most notable aspect and British actors are among those who have stood out in them. The Bookshop (2018) may have been a rather feeble piece, but its star Bill Nighy was magnificent while Ben Kingsley was on his finest form when he worked for her in 2008. The film in question was Elegy which I consider to be her best, and it may not be by chance that that film was an adaptation by another hand of a novel by Philip Roth. More often one finds Coixet writing her own screenplays - often original work - and the weaknesses that I have found in her films usually stem from storylines that fail to cohere fully and to convince throughout. Yet what’s upfront is forever stilted and unconvincing. Any delight in seeing a film-maker harness the talent of the ever-overlooked Sarita Choudhury is immediately cancelled out by puzzlement at what she’s doing on Spall’s balcony – and why she’s performing an erotic cabaret act for pensioners who patently wouldn’t be in the audience of an erotic cabaret act. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. On this occasion, the Catalonian filmmaker has made the journey to the titular peculiar seaside city: located on the shores of the Mediterranean, the “New York of Alicante” is a fascinating melting pot of cultures, ages and lifestyles. Here, hedonistic pensioners rub shoulders with stag and hen parties, and youngsters in search of sun, sex and raves. It’s a mini-country of wonders where anything is possible, and that’s why Coixet has brought the protagonist of her new movie, brought to life by British actor Timothy Spall, to its towering high-rises and sandy beaches.

filmprofile] – now a few pounds lighter than he was in Mike Leigh’s biopic – plays a good man, but one whose life is not really that spectacular. He works in a finance company in Manchester, refusing loans to those who genuinely need them and granting credit to those who can cough up enough for it. He therefore has all those paradoxes of our modern lifestyle etched on his very soul: in addition, he’s a fervent believer in climatology and trusts unwaveringly in the weather forecasts published by various media outlets each day. Spall soldiers on regardless, burrowing further into his recessive character, tending a bluff northern brogue, and trying to sublimate Coixet’s airier ideas. Yet his gift – for conveying a lot with a little – is squandered on a script this on-the-nose; he can but listen as police chief Carmen Machi informs him people are boxes that need opening. Cast: Timothy Spall, Sarita Choudhury, Carmen Machi, Pedro Casablanc, Ana Torrent, Édgar Vittorino, Leonardo Ortuzgris, Ben Temple, Victor Andrews, Victoria Hidalgo.Dir Isabel Coixet , Pro Agustin Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar and Esther García, Screenplay Isabel Coixet, Ph Jennifer Cox and Jean-Claude Larrieu, Art Dir Uxua Castelló, Ed Jordi Azategui , Music Alfonso de Villallonga, Costumes Sueva Sampelayo Vázquez. At nearly two hours, the film is relatively leisurely. Nevertheless, we are held throughout thanks to Spall. There is good work too from Sarita Choudhury in the role of Alex, a woman who is Daniel's partner in the club and who occasionally appears on its stage. Location shooting is a further benefit, but Coixet’s story has limited impact itself. As a mystery tale, It Snows in Benidorm does more or less reveal what happened to Daniel eventually (especially if one stays through the end credits!) but it's hardly a memorable tale. One could approach the film as a work about contrasting siblings (in addition to Peter and Daniel, there is a late revelation about another pair who are, outwardly at least, very different). However, that theme is hardly developed. So, perhaps, the film is best regraded as being about chances lost, if not necessarily forever. Certainly, Peter glimpses aspects of life unknown to him in Manchester while Alex, expressing herself in high-flown dialogue on occasion, is presented as someone who, despite surface appearances, carries an inner loneliness. She may have left her youth behind but Peter is decades older and an unlikely love match for her. The film itself seems uncertain how to portray the bond that develops between them, sidestepping sex but not a shared bed. It's a relationship which, had it been presented with full insight into the mixed needs and feelings of both of them, might have provided an effective centre for the film. But, as it is, Coixet never gets deep into it and this weakens the effectiveness of the piece although nothing can undermine the impact of Spall’s performance: if one recommends the film despite all its limitations, it is because of him.

One day, a twist of fate causes his apparent stability to falter, and he decides to go off in search of his brother, who has been living in Spain for years. Once there, he will become embroiled in an investigation with an uncertain outcome and will meet two women who will cause him to re-examine the life he has been living: a policewoman ( Carmen Machi) who – no clichés here – adores poetry, and a burlesque star ( Sarita Choudhury) who conceals pearls about her alluring body.