- Sarah, an unsatisfied saleswoman, finds a list of running trails across Britain. Between work assignments, she explores these routes. Eventually, she abandons her job to fully embrace this newfound passion for running.
- Present day. Sarah McGuire, a travelling sales woman is off on a trip up north to sell her boss's latest range of lingerie stock Unhappy in her current relationship with a car mechanic, she sets off with a mind to change her life for the better. She is good at her job but is unfulfilled. To alleviate her daily boredom she runs to orchestral music. Running is her one real pleasure in life. A chance meeting in a pub while drunk furnishes her with a list of ten beautiful places to go running in Britain. Initially, the places are on route between her sales assignments, but finally Sarah has to make the decision to get off the beaten track and go on the run.—Anonymous
- Synopsis
Got To Run
Sarah, a much put-upon young woman who has come to the end of her four-year relationship with her car-mechanic boyfriend, who does not appreciate her and wants her to be a stay-at-home wife who will raise their children and have a cooked meal ready for him when he comes home at the end of a working day. The second male bugbear in her life is her employer, a purveyor of cheaply made garish sexy underwear which he sells to a number of sex shops in various cities in England, Wales and Scotland, with Sarah acting as his travelling sales representative. She now sets out on a week-long trip to drum up more business and push sales of his latest wares, which he sincerely believes are the magical cure for the disappointing sex lives of married women.
We are left in no doubt as to what Sarah thinks about her life and the state of the world in general, as she addresses an invisible audience, much in the same manner of the characters in the films of the French New Wave directors. This may be due to her attempts to study the French language, which she tries to learn by listening to audio tapes while she drives around the country, staying in a succession of almost identical Travelodge budget hotels, an employee perk that Mr Prat, her boss, is so proud to provide. He, however, does not want to believe that the economy is in trouble, as Sarah tells him that money is in short supply for a lot of people. She proves to be right when he phones her on her mobile to cancel her visit to a retailer of theirs in Wrexham, whose business has folded.
One evening, she visits a bar and has too much to drink and becomes quite intoxicated, and she tells the bartender that she loves running while listening to classical-style orchestral music. He then insists on giving her a list of ten places where she must go running, starting with Blackpool Pier, claiming that running at all ten sites will change her life. She is quite skeptical and tells him so before falling down on the floor, overcome by drink, so he kindly calls a cab so that she can return to her hotel room. She now continues on her sales trip and goes to see their retailer in Liverpool, a married man, called Kevin, who clearly has a more than commercial interest in Sarah, his passion being aroused, when he sees their latest range and she offers to display it to him as there is no photo of this outfit on a model and she has already put it on under her clothes in order to titillate him and close the deal. She then closes the blinds in his tiny office and removes her outer clothing and then tries to get him to order an acceptable number of boxes but he refuses to go as high as twenty, unless she lets him see her naked breasts, which she does, although the audience does not as they are hidden by a sign reading CENSORED.
Having visited Blackpool and Castlerigg Stone Circle, the first two runs on the bartenders list, Sarah then goes on to Carlisle and then eastwards to Newcastle, where she goes running at the Angel of the North and then tackles Hadrians Wall. From there she makes her way into Scotland, having decided to do all the runs on her list in preference to continuing her sales tour. Her boss tries to contact her by mobile, but is only rarely successful, as there is often no signal, but when he does get through, she does promise to return his car. As she prepares for her last run at Inverpolly in the Northwest Highlands, the car refuses to start and she goes in search of a car mechanic, who is unable to help her the same day, as he has promised to drive an old lady, but he suggests that she spend the night in the local bunkhouse shelter for hill walkers and promises to take a look at her car and see what is wrong. The next day he comes over to see her and takes her on a walk where they have a heart-to-heart conversation and she learns that he is the local laird and the self-appointed guardian of the local mountain peaks, and they both realise that they are soul mates, in a suitably upbeat ending.
Another film with a strong female heroine, most competently acted by Kendall, who bears the weight of the narrative, since most of other characters, and especially the male ones (with two exceptions) are of little interest. An unusual film that holds ones interest and a work that would appeal to quite a wide audience in a good many countries.
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