The Land Girls

This adaptation of Angela Huth's WWII novel follows the fortunes of - take three girls! - fun-loving Lancashire lass Prue (Friel), innocent Cambridge graduate Ag (Weisz), and responsible but romantic officer's fiancée Stella (McCormack), sent to work by the Land Army on a Dorset farm. Old man Lawrence's surliness is softened by his wife, but son Joe (Mackintosh), keen to be a pilot, presents a different problem. Though he's already engaged, Prue sets her cap at him. There are frequent hints of a bigger picture, but the focus is so firmly on individual experience that the significant details get lost in the overall lyricism. The schematic plot seems at first set to focus on the changes undergone by the three women, but by the end has almost forgottent about two of them (including, unfortunately, Prue, whose vitality far outshines that of her plummy colleagues).