The Last Bus: Sensitive road movie starring Timothy Spall, who wants to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased wife in the south of England and travels by bus from Scotland to do so.
Film plot and background
Sympathetic road movie starring Timothy Spall, who wants to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased wife in the south of England and travels by bus from Scotland to do so.
Tom (Timothy Spall) lived with his wife Mary (Phyllis Logan) in the small town of John O’Groats on the northern tip of Scotland. When she passes away at a ripe old age, he wants to fulfil her last wish and travel to Land’s End in Cornwall, over 1,500 kilometres away, where they once met. There he wants to scatter her ashes in the sea.
To do this, Tom boards a bus at a remote bus stop in his home country. Thanks to his retirement age, he can travel free of charge and wants to use local buses to travel to the southernmost tip of England. He carries only a simple suitcase with the most necessary utensils and, of course, his Mary’s ashes. On the way, he meets very different people who share his story and support him. The longer the journey goes on, the more support he receives on social networks, but he has to deal with some surprising unpopularities here and there.
“The Englishman who got on the bus and went to the end of the world” – background, cast, cinema release
Starring Timothy Spall (“Mr. Turner”), this is a heartfelt road movie about a 90-year-old man. However, Spall was about 30 years younger at the time of filming, as was Phyllis Logan (“Downton Abbey”), who plays his wife Mary in the film.
Due to a tight budget, many of the scenes were shot exclusively in Scotland – an important exception was the scene in which the official border between England and Scotland is passed. The idea of the film is not based on a true story, but rather a funny idea that the relatives of the screenwriter Joe Ainsworth had. They were talking about how to take advantage of the senior citizen pass for public transport. In the UK, there are local offers for people over 60 to travel for free on buses.
In Germany, “The Englishman Who Got on the Bus and Went to the End of the World” opens in cinemas on 11 August 2022.
