I, like many, I'm sure was seduced into buying/wanting to watch Tamara Drewe by the gorgeous Gemma Arterton parading around brazenly the sleepy Dorset village in her shorter than short shorts.
With direction from supremo director Stephen Frears, one immediately thought it mustn't be so bad and felt liberated that the perfect excuse had been found to wallow in some good-old village rumpy-pumpy and not to feel too guilty about it.
Tamara Drewe is not a great, or special film, but does boulder along quite nicely, with characters that are almost realistic - I live near that part of the world and in such hamlets, there is this strange and heady mixture of folk. I found it reasonably clever the way that Thomas Hardy, the world-known literary giant who wrote about and lived those parts and the that an American novelist, faced with writer's block has come for a retreat to study his beloved Hardy.
Tamara herself is largely believable as are her reasons for returning to the place of her home, as are the Hardiman's, as philandering best- selling author and his hobbyist farmer wife, played superbly by Roger Allam and Tamsin Greig. As others have mentioned the cheeky duo of bored and savvy schoolgirls steal every scene, their broad-accented Oh My God exclamation on everything epitomising every teenager in every village and town all over the country.
What does grate with me and ultimately reduces my enjoyment is the brash and unlikeable drummer that Drewe is sent to interview and is the crush of the schoolgirls. As the film is very loosely based on Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd - and I am not familiar with that work - I cannot say how important or faithful the inclusion of this individual is to the narrative. It does add zip and unrest in the almost comatose locale but is rather like a wasp that hangs about at a picnic - you put up with it but occasionally swipe out at it, hoping it might go away.
The story does sort itself out in the end, fairly neatly, which is kind of satisfying but the film is a tad too long - 106 mins is stretching it out too far.
Tamara Drewe is an enjoyable film, with enough substance to just about keep one interested, is often very funny and full of actors we all sort of know - and as I said, mentally excuses oneself from gawping at Gemma in those sawn-off and potentially deadly denim shorts....
With direction from supremo director Stephen Frears, one immediately thought it mustn't be so bad and felt liberated that the perfect excuse had been found to wallow in some good-old village rumpy-pumpy and not to feel too guilty about it.
Tamara Drewe is not a great, or special film, but does boulder along quite nicely, with characters that are almost realistic - I live near that part of the world and in such hamlets, there is this strange and heady mixture of folk. I found it reasonably clever the way that Thomas Hardy, the world-known literary giant who wrote about and lived those parts and the that an American novelist, faced with writer's block has come for a retreat to study his beloved Hardy.
Tamara herself is largely believable as are her reasons for returning to the place of her home, as are the Hardiman's, as philandering best- selling author and his hobbyist farmer wife, played superbly by Roger Allam and Tamsin Greig. As others have mentioned the cheeky duo of bored and savvy schoolgirls steal every scene, their broad-accented Oh My God exclamation on everything epitomising every teenager in every village and town all over the country.
What does grate with me and ultimately reduces my enjoyment is the brash and unlikeable drummer that Drewe is sent to interview and is the crush of the schoolgirls. As the film is very loosely based on Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd - and I am not familiar with that work - I cannot say how important or faithful the inclusion of this individual is to the narrative. It does add zip and unrest in the almost comatose locale but is rather like a wasp that hangs about at a picnic - you put up with it but occasionally swipe out at it, hoping it might go away.
The story does sort itself out in the end, fairly neatly, which is kind of satisfying but the film is a tad too long - 106 mins is stretching it out too far.
Tamara Drewe is an enjoyable film, with enough substance to just about keep one interested, is often very funny and full of actors we all sort of know - and as I said, mentally excuses oneself from gawping at Gemma in those sawn-off and potentially deadly denim shorts....