TAMARA DREW

In a picture-book setting of an idyllic Devonshire Farmhouse a group of middle-aged misfits gather in a writer’s retreat hoping to emulate their host and write a best selling novel of their own. The published author is a misogynist prig and so his saintly put-on wife is kept busy keeping both their house and their marriage together.

That is, until Tamara Drew turns up to live in the cottage just over the hill.  She had left the countryside years ago to find her fortune and meanwhile has grown from gangly girl into something of a beauty, much helped by her new nose, which is soon the talk of the village.  She doesn’t want for suitors and has the local hunky farmer champing at the bit, and a young rock star, and the dirty old author.  She beds all three.  (That is so NOT Hollywood!)

In this rather silly quintessentially British comedy, with more than a touch of farce, everyone eventually gets more or less what they deserve.  Based on a bestselling graphic novel by Posy Simonds which I have never read BUT to me it seems somehow to draw much more than  a tad of its inspiration from Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far From a Madding Crowd’ (filmed by John Schlesinger and starring Julie Christie).

Stephen Frears directs a stellar cast of fine British acting talent in this rather pleasant diversion on English sexual manners, but it’s a far cry from his  stunning earlier work that included cutting edge films like ‘My Beautiful Launderette’, ‘Sammy & Rose Get Laid’ and ‘Prick Up Your Ears.’  Maybe after making ‘The Queen’ he decided to be more ‘respectable’.  Shame that.

R.T.V. The English countryside in glorious sunshine BUT also Luke Evans as the local Farmer and Dominic Cooper as Ben the Rock Star.  Shallow I know, but it’s that kind of film.  Better still, get Mr Schlesinger’s film from Netflix/Love Film