A far-away American town gets to pretend it’s Wellesley in an upcoming feature film, The Leisure Seeker, starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. Scheduled for U.S release on January 19, 2018, the movie is about a retired Wellesley couple who decides to coax the old Winnebago out of the garage and onto the open road for one last hurrah of a roadtrip.

They’re hanging out in diners, they’re making friends at campgrounds, and of course their adult children are just sick with worry. Sutherland’s character is a retired high school English teacher with Alzheimer’s, and Mirren’s character also has health challenges so what are they thinking, setting off like that and worrying everybody? So irresponsible.

Although The Leisure Seeker is set partly in Wellesley it wasn’t filmed here, giving another town the acting chance of a lifetime.

The September 3 premier at the Venice International Film Festival garnered mixed reviews for the roadtrip flick. The Telegraph loved it. Variety panned it. I guess it will be up to The Swellesley Report to break the tie when the movie is widely released. I’m sure I will be sufficiently recovered by then from the obvious snub by the organizers of the Venice Film Fest, who apparently left my invitation to the premier somewhere on the cutting room floor.