The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain (PG) *** Starring Hugh Grant, Colm Meaney Directed by Christopher Monger Year Released: 1995 A Review by Frankie Paiva
Few of us will ever know the feeling of loving something so much that you will do anything and everything to protect it. Such warm, gentle emotion is rarely the subject of feature films, but Miramax has taken a change with Englishman. A loving, affectionate portrait of the love a Welsh village has for its mountain is the type of thing that should be filling the modern motion picture screen. Yes, this is another one of those quirky, quiet, and subtle English comedies, but it’s one that everyone should enjoy.
George (Ian McNeice) and Reginald (Grant) are cartographers (people who make maps) that come to a small Welsh village to measure their great mountain. The two men are very out of place in this type of community and no one really seems to like them. This dislike of them increases when the town learns that in order to be classified as a mountain on the British maps, their mountain (or is it a hill?) has to be at least one thousand feet high. The first reading doesn't please the townspeople, it’s just under a thousand feet high.
Devising a plan the local pub owner, Morgan the Goat (Meaney), decides to screw up the cartographer's car so that they can’t go anywhere, he also hires a woman to pretend that she fancies Reginald. This all happens while the rest of the townspeople bring dirt up in buckets and pails so that they can build on the fourteen or so extra feet that is needed for their beloved treasure. Morgan fights with the town’s reverend about whether or not the people will work on the Sunday of church to rebuild the mountain. He won’t let him, so how will they get it done before they leave the next day? Will the townspeople be able to have the first mountain in Wales?
This movie is so cute and full of little details that you can’t help but liking it. It’s these little details that keep the film running ninety-four minutes without the presence of a very solid plot. Hugh Grant gives his usual bumbling English performance and Ian McNeice is funny, especially after he drinks way too much gin. The really fun parts of the movie are seeing how they try to delay the two individuals from leaving the town so that they can measure the mountain again. For instance, the local train station says that all passenger trains are flooded, yet the coal trains can still go right through. The answer? They have different tracks of course. I also don’t quite think that the love story between Reginald and Betty works very well. They both seem awkward and not showing off their best acting abilities in those scenes. While it’s obvious that the title is too long, I had some trouble coming up with alternative ones. The Englishman? The Hill? One Thousand Feet? Nah, none of them fit the film’s fun, quirky atmosphere. A great movie to rent (a must for English comedy lovers if they haven’t seen it already) The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain gets *** stars.
The Young-Uns: I can’t say that most young children will get this movie, but there is a some mild language and plenty of drinking. Good Age 9 & Up
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com Visit my website at http://www.homestead.com/teenagemoviecritic/mainpage.html
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