Director Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things, High Fidelity) may very well be the most interesting and prolific British filmmaker of the past half century. However, he still possesses an unfortunate ability to make pretty lousy movies on occasion. Case in point: his latest offering, Tamara Drewe.
Tamara Drewe opens in idyllic rural England, where Beth (Greig) and her husband Nicholas (Allam) run a farm that also serves as a retreat for struggling writers. Actually, Beth runs the farm with the help of hunky gardener Andy Cobb (Evans), while Nicholas writes crime novels and sleeps around. The other writers note the tension between Nicholas and Beth with growing interest, particularly Glen (Camp), an awkward American who harbors obvious feelings for Beth.
Into this stew of pastoral discontent waltzes Tamara Drewe (Arterton). A successful London journalist (she’s smart!) with a new nose job (she’s hot!), Tamara returns to the countryside to fix up her childhood home and reignite the passions of former lover Andy. Class, predictably, keeps them apart. Will they ever find a way to be together? Well, yeah, probably, but not before they have a lot of promiscuous, unnecessary sex with other people first.
Frears employs a few quirky cinematic flourishes — a cheesy flashback here, an uncomfortable fantasy sequence there — but not enough to distract from the unlikeable characters and clunky script. There is a wonderfully bizarre moment of tragic comedy towards the end (it involves stampeding cows), but it does little to save a movie that, overall, is whole lot of ado about really not that much.
Directed by: Stephen Frears
Starring: Gemma Arterton, Roger Allam, Bill Camp, Tamsin Greig, Luke Evans
Rated R0, 111 min.
