The Last Bus (2021 film)

The Last Bus is a 2021 drama film directed by Gillies MacKinnon.^[1] It stars Timothy Spall as an elderly gentleman who travels the length of the United Kingdom to scatter his late wife's ashes. It was released in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2021.

The Last Bus
Poster
Directed by	Gillies MacKinnon
Written by	Joe Ainsworth
Starring	Phyllis Logan Timothy Spall Natalie Mitson Ben Ewing
Cinematography	George Geddes
Edited by	Anne Sopel
Music by	Nick Lloyd Webber
Production companies	Hurricane Films Head Gear Films
Distributed by	Parkland Entertainment
Release date	27 August 2021 (2021-08-27)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Plot

Following the death of his wife, Tom travels from John o' Groats in Scotland to Land's End in England using his free bus pass on local buses, to return to where he and his wife grew up and to scatter her ashes.^[2]

Cast

• Phyllis Logan as Mary
• Timothy Spall as Tom
• Natalie Mitson as Young Mary
• Ben Ewing as Young Tom
• Morgan Ingram as Fran
• Celyn Jones as Doctor Martin
• Colin McCredie as Graham Ogilvy

Music

Sixteen-year-old busker Caitlin Agnew had two of her original songs, "I Wanna" and "Don't Wanna Go Home", featured in the movie, after her father, while working on the movie set, recommended her music to the director.^[3]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of 28 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Not even typically brilliant work from Timothy Spall is enough to keep The Last Bus from sputtering into disappointment."^[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 37 out of 100, based on five critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.^[5]