Allelujah [Blu-ray] [2023] [Region Free]

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Allelujah celebrates the spirit of the elderly patients whilst paying tribute to the deep humanity of the medical staff battling with limited resources and ever-growing demand, based on a play by Alan Bennett. Somewhere in the middle, something most accurately described as an unholy cross between an Age UK advert and The Good Nurse takes place.

However, in the closing parts of the final act, a sudden jarring plot twist completely obliterates the established tone. In an epilogue, Valentine is shown working in an intensive care unit at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, where he encounters Ambrose, one of the Beth's former residents, who dies holding his hand. When The Beth, a geriatric ward in a small Yorkshire hospital, comes under threat of closure due to continuing NHS cuts, staff and residents alike — spearheaded by Sister Gilpin (Jennifer Saunders) and Dr Valentine (Bally Gill) — band together to fight for the hospital’s future.The imposition of a TV crew, brought in to show the daily workings of The Beth, leads to a slew of narratively obfuscatory, faux to-camera bits that feel out of place and alienating.

Upsetting scenes occur in which characters deal with illness, old age, and the death of loved ones - as well as their own fear of death. The Bethlehem hospital, nicknamed "the Beth" by locals, staff and residents, is a small geriatric hospital in the city of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, being threatened with closure due to funding cuts to the NHS. Bally Gill plays the genuinely caring Dr Valentine and Jennifer Saunders is the formidable, no-nonsense ward sister Gilpin who runs a tight ship.A frail incontinent woman named Molly is admitted to the Beth and initially looked after by Valentine, but tended to by Alma the following night. An exhausted, enraged Valentine leaves the hospital and breaks the fourth wall with an impassioned monologue in defence of the NHS. In October 2021, it was announced that Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Jennifer Saunders, Bally Gill, Russell Tovey, and David Bradley had joined the cast of the film, [5] and principal photography began later that month. Allelujah is the first film to be adapted from one of Bennett's works since 2015's The Lady in the Van, which starred Maggie Smith and was based on Bennett's memoir.