The mood was slightly dented when somebody let a glass door swing in my face a few minutes later with no hint of an apology, but it wasn't until much later that it occurred to me that really, all this good-feeling stuff is about as reliable a guide to life as a week spent drinking cocktails by a Spanish pool. The truth is, it mostly isn't down to us. While we are saying hello to the flowers and the trees, recessions happen, we lose our jobs, countries are invaded. Which brings us to a deeper truth: people in Richard Curtis films are, as my father used to say, OK for a few bob.
Lack of money was providing Matt Damon with no end of anxiety in the summer's last big sci-fi blockbuster, Elysium. Our world, a century or so hence, has been rendered toxic by overcrowding and poverty, and the rich have taken off to live in a massive space station on which has been created a perfectly manicured landscape of white mansions, immaculate lawns and swimming pools. Damon-muscled-up and shaven-headed-struggles on with dreams of reaching this Nirvana, but an industrial accident suddenly shortens his odds-with five days to live, it's now or never.
Like the better science fiction there's a kernel of truth to all this. Now that we know even the middle classes are about to have their well-paid livelihoods replaced by technology, the super-rich really will be the only ones who can insulate themselves from all sorts of nastiness.
The world they choose to build in Elysium — overseen by a spiky and brittle Jodie Foster, busying about like a buyer for John Lewis — might appear oddly suburban, but at least it's clean, tidy and ordered. Here on Earth, it's one big shanty town, there's no proper healthcare, and there are seemingly a hell of a lot of ill people. The rich have their own individual scanners which cure all known diseases, as well as reconstructing crushed faces and basically ensuring eternal life and good health.
The presence of Damon — Hollywood's über-liberal — makes the point even clearer, just in case you didn't get it — private health — care nasty, Obamacare wonderful. With the earth in such ruins, one could conclude that there's little point in staying alive anyway. The film is at least attempting to say something, which gives all the majestic visuals a reason. But the time might be right, perhaps, for a counterintuitive blast against the stream of apocalyptic epics we have become used to. As Richard Curtis surely knows, we all need hope.
