COLD COMFORT FARM
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
COLD COMFORT FARM is a comedy of manners and quirky country bumpkins set in the 1920s. It overflows with overly droll English comedy. Although there are some nice lines in the film, I suspect that unless you are a fan of this genre of British comedy you may be as unmoved as I was. For people who like BBC TV shows like "To the Manor Born", this may be just your cup of tea, but for me, I need more than overdrawn bizarre characters with thick accents to like a show.
Although I found some of the script by Malcolm Bradbury and Stella Gibbons interesting, I did not laugh once. Not a good sign for a comedy. The large audience I was in laughed a lot during the physical comedy like the mass twitching heads scene, but generally was pretty silent for a comedy. I started to say they laughed during the really stupid parts, but decided that was too much of a value judgment, but notice like a good lawyer, I managed to say it anyway.
Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale who was Hero in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING) leaves the city to go and live on Cold Comfort Farm. Let me say right now that her acting is the bright shining star in this dismal film. As soon as she arrives, the skies become overcast and the cinematography (Chris Seager) is suitably dark and foreboding. The farm looks like a sixteenth century farm that has been neglected. The make-up (Dorka Nieradzik) is of the let's cake on a quarter of an inch of dirt on everyone on the farm variety. The farm is populated by several generations of Starkadders, and grime seems to be their middle names.
Typical of the comedy is the guy who washes the dishes on the farm. He washes the old wooden bowls they eat from by swishing the end of a stick in the bowl while filled with dish water. He refuses modern implements like cloths or sponges. Another is that the Starkadders never call Flora by her name, rather they refer to her only as "Robert Poste's child." Typical lines are "Robert Poste's child, your dinner is ready," or "Where is Robert Poste's child?"
Great-aunt Ada Doom (Sheila Burrell) is a hermit who lives in a bedroom upstairs because she, "saw something nasty in the woodshed" decades ago, presumably having to do with the aforementioned Robert Poste. I did not like Sheila Burrell at all in this role save her good scene at the end.
Robert Poste's child is obsessed with tidiness which is a challenge on this pigsty of a farm. As she puts it, "Nature's all very well in her place, but there's no reason to be untidy." She is a budding author who keeps trying to write her big novel. It has quintessential bad writing with lines including, "From the stubborn interwoven strata of his unconscious ..."
One of my favorite minor characters appears in my least favorite scene. When the local preacher Amos Starkadder (Ian McKellen) warns his congregation that, "There's no butter in heaven," all of their heads begin twitching as if there is a sudden massive outbreak of spastic paralysis. Later he explains his new mission as, "I'm going to go all about in a Ford van. Like the apostles of old, I'll go about the land." In this same religious vein, a character named Charles observes, "We are all purified by suffering."
The film is a cornucopia of strange characters. We even have a film producer Mr. Neck (Harry Ditson) who drops by the farm and describes the sorts of actors he is looking for as, "I don't want sissies. It's red meat time in the movies." There is even a takeoff on the ending of GONE WITH THE WIND, which I think is the funniest scene in the show. The sweet ending of the picture is well done and a bit of a surprise. Finally, if you wonder, like me, where you saw Maria Miles who plays Elfine Starkadder before, she played Anna in KAFKA, but I think I have must have seen in other things as well.
COLD COMFORT FARM runs 1:44, but I would have been preferred a lot less. It is not subtitled, but the extremely thick Sussex accents are frequently unintelligible. I've been to Sussex several times, and I though I was fluent in the language. The film is rated PG-13. There is some sex, no nudity, no violence, and fairly mild language. I think the show would be fine for kids over say 9 or 10. If you like this brand of droll English comedy of manners, then you may like the show, but I did not so I can not recommend it. I give it **.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: May 30, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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