COLD COMFORT FARM
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1996 Michael John Legeros
(Gramercy)
Directed by John Schlesinger
Written by Malcolm Bradbury, based on the novel by Stella Gibbons
Cast Kate Beckinsale, Eileen Atkins, Rufus Sewell, Ivan Kaye,
Ian McKellan, Freddie Jones, Maria Miles, Joanna Lumley,
Christopher Bowen, Stephen Fry, Sheila Burrell
MPAA Rating "PG-13"
Running Time 104 minutes
Reviewed at The Cedar Lee, Cleveland, OH (10JUN96)
==
John Schlesinger, of all people, directs this hilarious BBC and Thames Television-produced comedy about a tidy society girl (Kate Beckinsale) who moves to the country, to stay with relatives at a ramshackle family farm. Recently orphaned, Miss Flora Poste has chosen Cold Comfort Farm as the place to begin collecting "life experiences" for use in a novel that she hopes to write. ("One as good as 'Persuasion'," she notes.) And, much like another Austen heroine, Ms. Poste is soon imposing upon her backwoods brethren the standards of style, manners, and hygiene. (In a letter to London, she pleads "Send fashion magazines!")
Though, at times, it tries too hard to be funny-- Eileen Atkins' Cousin Judith glares as if she were starring in a sequel to YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN-- this haughtier episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" ultimately warms from within. We're drawn into the characters and are soon laughing with them, as well as *at* them. And laugh you will. A scruffy Ian McKellan (RICHARD III) preaching fire-and- brimstone to a quivering country congregation is alone worth the price of admission. Also good is a GONE WITH THE WIND reference that happens later in the film.
Grade: B+
--
Mike Legeros - Raleigh, NC
legeros@nando.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w)
Visit me in MOVIE HELL
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