Tamara Drewe [Blu-ray]

Sheer delight
The sleepy English village of Ewedown becomes quite lively when former ugly duckling Tamara Drewe comes back to town. Now sporting a perky new nose and sexy Daisy Dukes, Tamara quickly becomes romantically involved with a rock star, a sleezy older man, and her childhood sweetheart. With a large cast and many subplots, this story of what really goes on behind the quaint postcard-pretty closed doors is full of laughs and tender moments and even some cattle stampedes.

This movie is completely charming. The characters are all believable, the setting is idyllic, and the script is clever and quirky. All of the adult shenanigans are witnessed - and complicated - by a pair of adolescent girls, a kind of comical Greek chorus who tie it all together. If you like good, indie British films, you'll love this one.

Fabulous black humor, not a Hollywood romcom
I found this film on a really long flight home from Asia and started watching it because it looked easy on the brain. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be the best film that I've seen all year! The second surprise came when I read all the mixed Amazon reviews - it seems like half the world hates this, and the other half loves it.

To make it easy for you, I think if you like Hollywood style romcoms you will probably hate this, and if you like British black humor, you will probably really like it. This is definitely not a Hollywood romcom. If you want something brainless with a lot of stereotypical characters and a predictable happy ending, then stop reading. It's also not it if you want to be uplifted or intellectually challenged - it's meant to be a social comedy, but the black humor kind, not the kind that offers a serious social critique. There's also lots of dialogue and very little action, and there are no major conclusions, so if you have short attention span...

A nice nod to Hardy
This clever little gem does a great job of capturing the spirit of the Hardy genre and updating it into to a film that has great pacing, a very healthy dose of black humor, interesting and flawed characters, and outstanding performances. The acting is really noteworthy. And the "greek chorus" in the form of bored teenage girls was fantastic. Interesting and original.

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