Themes: Fish Out of Water, Eccentric Families, Starting Over
Main Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Sheila Burrell, Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Ivan Kaye
Release Year: 1995
Country: UK
Run Time: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Stella Gibbons' popular novel was published in 1932, and it has been adapted twice for British television, first as a miniseries in 1971, then by director John Schlesinger in 1995. That version proved so popular that it was released to theaters in the U.S. The heroine of Gibbons' story, Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale), is an aspiring young writer with two needs: material for her first novel, and a cheap place to live and work. A wealthy friend encourages her to take advantage of her country cousins and impose upon them for lodgings. Flora finds Cold Comfort Farm to be a ramshackle affair populated by eccentrics including the imperious Ada Doom (Sheila Burrell), her daughter Judith (Eileen Atkins), Judith's rough but handsome son Seth (Rufus Sewell), and Amos (Ian McKellen), an amateur preacher whose sermonizing seems to release some kind of demons within him. Undaunted by this menagerie, Flora gets to work organizing the household, and she comes to realize that the material for her book is right in front of her. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
Cold Comfort Farm is a welcome late-career success from the inconsistent John Schlesinger, who got off to a smashing start in the '60s with Billy Liar, Darling, Far From the Madding Crowd, and Midnight Cowboy, only to stumble through the next several decades with less memorable work. Stella Gibbons' novel is replete with colorful characters and wacky situations, but it would be too easy to give over the show to the country cousins. Fortunately, Schlesinger and his collaborators found their Flora in Kate Beckinsale, a brilliant actress whose only previous film role of note was that of Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. Beckinsale makes Flora a fascinating combination of naïveté and bossiness. She is oblivious to the darker natures of her country relatives and their neighbors, but she is also completely determined to improve their lives. (Perhaps the contradictions actually feed off one another.) While Flora bustles about, straightening, dusting, and re-arranging, her subjects act bewildered, amused, put-upon, and relieved that someone besides the selfish Ada Doom is in charge. Of all the scenery chewers in this cast of first-rate performers, no one masticates as loudly and as amusingly as Ian McKellen as the Reverend Amos Starkadder. The film is a delight from start to predictable finish. Fans of the French hit Amelie may find that their heroine from that film has a charming predecessor in Flora Poste. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Jim Holloway - Art Director, Noel Davis - Casting, Amy Roberts - Costume Designer, John Schlesinger - Director, Mark Day - Editor, Robert Lockhart - Composer (Music Score), Robert Lockhart - Songwriter, Malcolm Thornton - Production Designer, Chris Seager - Cinematographer, Richard Broke - Producer, Antony Root - Producer, Alison Gilby - Producer, Jim Greenhorn - Sound/Sound Designer, Malcolm Bradbury - Screenwriter, Stella Gibbons - Book Author
