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Tamara Drewe provides smart, sexy tragicomedy
of British manners
when you spend $50 or more
with this coupon exp. 1/6/11
SUSHI
TAMARA DREWE Written by Moira Buffi ni
from the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds. Directed
by Stephen Frears. Cinematography, Ben Davis.
Music, Alexandre Desplat. Starring Gemma Arterton,
Dominic Cooper, Luke Evans. BBC Films, 2010. R. 111
minutes.44421
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omedy of manners, British rom-com,
tragedy, acutely observed realist fi lm
— which is Tamara Drewe? All and
then some, but the overwhelming feel of
Stephen Frears’ prettily fi lmed fl ick settles
mostly on surprised, sometimes outraged
laughter, and wry, warm recognition of
human failings. Tamara Drewe won’t win
any best movie awards, but it’s thoughtfully
enjoyable and more than worth a couple of
hours at the Bijou.
The movie, directed by the man who’s
brought us everything from My Beautiful
Laundrette to Dirty Pretty Things to The
Queen, mixes elements in a sprightly
toss of a movie with a dark underbelly.
Like Miss Marple, who fi nds the drear
nastiness lurking in every rural heart,
the movie demonstrates that English
villages, picturesque as they may be —
and cinematographer Ben Davis (Stardust,
Kick-Ass) caresses the fi elds, the bees, the
chickens and the innocent cows, with a
loving and gentle light, even turning nasty
winter rain into enchantingly romantic
weather — contain the full range of human
behavior, decent to gapingly bad. And
when strangers come, or return, to town, the
simmering stewpot of human interaction
opens up new options for mistakes and the
slight possibility of tenuous redemption.
The stranger returning to the town of
Ewedown is a woman who roars into the
Dorset hamlet in her Mini Cooper with plans
to clean up and sell her recently deceased
mother’s house. She’s the titular Tamara
Drewe (Gemma Arterton, who played a Bond
girl in Quantum of Solace and arm candy in
The Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans),
a successful columnist and reporter who’s had
a nose job and who — in a scene that feels a
bit less realistic than the rest of the movie —
sashays sexily into an afternoon party and sets
in motion a cascade of events.
Tamara’s house once belonged to the
family of Andy Cobb (Luke Evans, whose
lovely, nude torso fi lls the opening shot of
the fi lm), and young Cobb once rejected
young Tam and her admittedly huge schnoz,
which we see in short, telling fl ashbacks.
$
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DENTISTRY
Actual strangers to Ewedown arrive in
the form of writers on retreat at Stonefi eld,
an organic farm built up by highly successful
crime novelist Nicholas Hardiment (Roger
Allam) and his long-suffering amaneuensis,
enabler, cook, farmer, editor and wife
Beth (Tamsin Greig). Nicholas starts out
insufferable and, though we see a bit of
humanity in him, he mostly stays that way;
Beth also remains insufferably good. Still,
her effi ciency, cheerfulness, kindness and
ability to provide just what the writers on
retreat need means she’s a muse for more
than her philandering asshole of a husband.
One of the charmed writers is an
American professor named Glen (Bill
Camp), who’s also riveted by Tamara but
who backs off quickly when Tam hooks
up with indie-rock drummer Ben Sergeant
(Dominic Cooper). Not to get too plotty, but
Ben’s arrival in the Dorset village furthers
the tale thanks to two 15-year-olds (Jessica
Barden and Charlotte Christie) who read
too many gossip rags and long to make life
in Ewedown more exciting. Barden turns
in a performance that perfectly depicts the
cruelty, lust, desperation, formless anger
and boredom of a teenager longing for
more (“a croupier in Vegas”) and ruining
several lives with her machinations.
The plot, altered a bit from the graphic
novel, comes mostly from Thomas Hardy’s
Far from the Madding Crowd, and it’s
a busy one. Yet the perfectly cast actors
deal admirably with every challenge of the
twisty story, skirting parody to arrive at
the half-happy, half-tragic conclusion with
depth and a wicked sense of humor. ew
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