Tamara Drewe
Winter 2011 Features series
Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 4:00pm
Sunday, January 9, 2011 at 7:00pm
Acadia Cinema's Al Whittle Theatre
450 Main Street, Wolfville, NS
Directed by Stephen Frears
Screenplay by Moira Buffini
Based on the book by Posy Simmonds
Starring Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans and Dominic Cooper
Rated 14A ·
1h 51m
United Kingdom
English
Tamara Drewe
Directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen) and based on Posy Simmonds’ beloved graphic novel of the same name (which was itself inspired by Thomas Hardy’s classic Far From the Madding Crowd), this wittily modern take on the romantic English pastorale is a far cry from Hardy’s Wessex. Tamara Drewe’s present-day English countryside—stocked with pompous writers, rich weekenders, bourgeois bohemians, a horny rock star and a great many Buff Orpington chickens and Belted Galloway cows—is a much funnier place. When Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton) sashays back to the bucolic village of her youth, life for the locals is thrown tail over teakettle. Tamara—once an ugly duckling—has been transformed into a devastating beauty (with help from plastic surgery). As infatuations, jealousies, love affairs and career ambitions collide among the inhabitants of the neighboring farmsteads, Tamara sets a contemporary comedy of manners into play using the oldest magic in the book–sex appeal.