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Cold Comfort Farm (1995)

Director: John Schlesinger

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Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

England in the '20s. Orphaned at the age of 19, middle-class Flora Poste determines to live off her relatives, rather than do anything so uncivilised as work. The only kin that remotely fit the bill are her distant cousins, the Starkadders, who work a decaying farm in Howling, Sussex, amid sundry yokels seemingly inhabiting another, Hardy-esque era. Made for the BBC, this woeful adaptation of Stella Gibbons' pastoral parody had success with American cinema audiences, who took it, perhaps, as just another British costume drama, rather than a comedy. Mind you, given Malcolm Bradbury's script and John Schlesinger's direction, which between them coarsen, soften and simply lose much of Gibbons' extraordinarily sophisticated, wonderfully funny humour, that's not surprising. The performances don't help much either, though that's less the fault of the very broad acting, than of the all-round starry miscasting (Lumley as Mrs Smiling, Fry as Mybug) - Kate Beckinsale in particular is far too sensible as the determined heroine.

Author: GA

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

witwoud said...

Posted on Jan 06 2011 18:10 How can Flora Poste be "too sensible?" It's her defining characteristic. Anyway, this is a lovely little film, contrary to Time Out's review, but very different to the book. (Personally I cannot stand adaptations that try to stay faithful to the original.) In this case Schlesinger made a lot of sensible changes and gave us a comedy that lacks the wickedness of the novel but makes up for it with charm and generosity.

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