Richard is a DIY store employee whose leisure life centres on Viking battle re-enactment. He embarrasses his son Martin, and his wife Cath has got fed up: Richard has moved out into fellow re-enactor and nerd Julian's home (where he lives with his mother), and Cath has moved Martin's PE teacher in. Richard loves Cath and wants to win her back, but is he too much of a loser.This mildly original but fairly predictable romcom succeeds, largely because of winning performances from Eddie Marsan, Jessica Hynes and Ewan Bremner as Richard, Cath and Julian.Much of the humour will appeal to nerds (there is a debate over who would be the better girlfriend, She-Hulk or Wonder Woman), and the central characters are all likeable. The location work in and around Ludlow is attractive, and the movie is a gentle and very British effort.With extras and crew recruited from Myspace, it is bewildering to note that this enjoyable movie didn't get a general cinema release in Britain.

This is the second British comedy I've seen recently that I'd never heard of until a friend recommended it to me (the other one is "Blow Dry"). I'm completely perplexed. The filmmakers went to all this trouble to get a brilliant script and cast with matching performances and then what? - they forgot to tell the UK audience that it exist?! Also, it was never marketed outside the UK (although it seems to have had a Swedish premiere according to IMDb Pro), no doubt losing millions in the process! It's really, really disheartening to all filmmakers everywhere to think that you can get everything right and still get it so wrong. If anyone knows the inside story on what happened (and to "Blow Dry" for that matter) then please let me know.In the meantime, this goes straight into my private hoard of great comedies that I keep locked in my study, away from prying eyes, for those rainy days! :-)

Faintheart is very believable the characters are almost to close for comfort. The life of Richard is boring underpaid and full of self important idiots like his boss, his other life is fulfilling and full of friends unfortunately his wife was being squeezed out by rush to do both. Richards son Martin is being bullied at school because of his fathers hobby changing his loyalty to shame until a girl at school shows interest in him and the hobby. The fight to save his family shakes Richard and causes him to reassess what is most important to him, Cath and his son are worth the fight although the battle is not as straightforward as he'd hoped. The re-enactors are seemingly a collection of what some would call "social misfits" perhaps looking from another angle- individualists not afraid of being separate from the herd, they share common traits in that their jobs are like Richard's dull and low paid their hobby escapism- better than crime. Features Richard Ridings from Eric the Viking as a bin man/wild axe wilding Viking perhaps the last avatar of Thor- shrunken to human form thoughtful yet full of fun. A great film worthy of watching in turns sad and funny.

This looks so awesome, I can't wait to get it on DVD. It was shot in my school, last year, though sadly whilst we were all on our summer holidays, so no one was around to mess it up. Apparently our school was chosen "because it looked the most stereotypically school-like." It's so weird seeing actors using our uniforms in the adverts. Some of my friends were extras, too. If you type in Faintheart on Youtube, you get up slide-shows of them with the actors, which is really great. So as well as it being a great film to look out for, it's going to be like a sort of school memento. The whole school is pretty much going to see it screened at the local Vue, if it's chosen to be shown here. How many people can say they've had a film shot at their school? Sort of makes you wish you took drama...~Jessbinx