Three out of Five stars
Running time: 105 mins

Slight and patchy but very sweet – Church is excellent and there’s good support from the likes of Joss Ackland.

I’ll Be There is probably destined to be known as The Charlotte Church Movie in the same way that Crossroads became The Britney Spears Movie. And, to be fair, she acquits herself nicely, though admittedly, playing a Welsh teenager with a great singing voice can’t have come as much of a stretch.

Long Lost Rock Star Father

Church plays Olivia, an only child who discovers that she’s the daughter of 80’s rock star Paul Kerr (writer-director Craig Ferguson). The only problem is her over-protective mother (Gemma Redgrave) doesn’t want her to have anything to do with him.

So Kerr gets off the booze and sets about trying to win round both mother and daughter.

Church is excellent in her debut, though it’s odd that her character is so asexual – however did the writers resist the ‘bad boy boyfriend’ cliché? The film also explicitly exploits her singing talents and she gets to sing a variety of things from arias to modern pop ‘choons’ to standards – her rendition of ‘Summertime’ is likely to raise a tear or two. In a good way.

There’s good support, too, particularly from Joss Ackland as her rockabilly grandfather (his gigs are a highlight) and Ralph Brown as Kerr’s Aussie mate.

In short, while this isn’t quite funny enough to achieve The Full Monty type success, it’s still a watchable “nice” little film.