If you’re expecting a wry and witty social commentary, prepare to be disappointed. Despite clear intentions, British gardening comedy Grow Your Own comes undone when too many narrative vines fail to blossom.
Following a group of allotment owners who throw their tools around when a group of refugees are granted their own patch of land, Grow Your Own ends up as little more than a series of fragmented sketches, with no strong characters to follow.
Making matters worse is the awkward tone that veers between tragedy (Kung Sang recounting his heart-breaking experience) and juvenile humour (Blacktree Road Allotments = B.R.A.).
The dialogue is simplistic, and the characters are often unconvincing caricatures (e.g. there’s an ‘evil’ corporate woman who wants to bulldoze the land for a mobile phone aerial). The humour is lukewarm at best.
Despite featuring some excellent actors – Eddie Marsan, Benedict Wong and Olivia Colman, to name a few – Grow Your Own is not worth rushing out to see.
