The Last of the Blonde Bombshells

After Elizabeth’s (Dame Judi Dench’s) husband dies, she begins to play her tenor saxophone again, and remembers when she was fifteen and a member of the Blonde Bombshells, an all-girl (with one exception) swing band. Accompanied by the exception and urged on by her granddaughter, Elizabeth hunts up all the old members of the band and urges them to perform, and in doing so, learns more than she knew about the band, its members, the roses on the drum set, and herself, the last of the Blonde Bombshells. —Kathy Li