Let’s get one thing clear about Stan and Ollie and beautiful as it is as a love story between two long-time friends who stick together even in the thin times, it is to all intents and purposes more or less a work of fiction. Big alterations have been made to the circumstances of the two great comedians because if you did not there would be no real dramatic story. So, it is understandable and not a criticism because Stan and Ollie is a great, emotional, hug of a film, strongly acted and written from start to finish.

To qualify this without wishing to try to be clever or mean Stan and Ollie were actually hugely popular on this tour and performed in top venues as part of a variety bill and not on their own and they had been doing these tours since 1942. I just found this interesting to see what was changed to give the story more dramatic imputes.

The film is a huge love-letter (how many times do I use this expression in my reviews) to the two men and the era it is set it. It is helped able along by the two actor portraying some of the most viewed comedians on the planet, with Coogan once again proving what a fine actor he is as he gets to grips with the screen presence of Stan Laurel and more importantly the off-screen persona, he is more than match by the sublime John C. Reilly playing the sweet-natured ‘Babe’ Hardy.

If the audience is not spoiled enough, we get Shirley Henderson (always perfect) and Nina Arianda playing the power behind the respective thrones as the seemingly icy double-act of the wives. Both give us as many snorts and laughs as the two male leads just from a different angle. The chemistry is perfect between all four.

Wedged in between the foursome we have the perfect foil, Rufus Jones, pitched sublimely between true fan and untrustworthy agent as the man who books Laurel and Hardy into the venues and then has to suggest ideas to the old men how they might get more fans into the venues with some extra unpaid work. In truth the story, setting and acting are sublime and make and sad, beautiful film, that is still uplifting despite, like life itself, it’s up and downs.

Personally I could have seen more the 1937 Laurel and Hardy that we glimpsed at the top of the tale, I loved the short cameo of James Finlayson a regular foil of the duo but it is entirely understandable that there is no real dramatic pull in a story of two men being very popular and successful.

Stan and Ollie is a great, commendably short film, that tells a true platonic love story between two great comedians from the golden age of movies and comedy and it leaves you warm, glowing, feel at the end and perhaps a tear in your eye.

You can’t help feeling it is a movie that is needed in the current climate.