TAMARA DREWE

Review: Tamara Drewe is a young newspaper writer who returns to her hometown of the English countryside. Her house that she grew up in is being prepped for sale.
Director: Stephen Frears
Actors: Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Roger Allam and Jessica Barden
Year: 2010
Genre: Art House, Comedy, Drama, International and Romance
Conclusion: 3/5
I was a bit disappointed with this film as I was expecting it to be a lot better than I thought, especially as it is a Stephen Frears film. Another film that he directed was The Queen, 2006 which was a massive hit. I found the strongest performances came from Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper. I did find Roger Allam too annoying. I found that he just didn’t work in it. Apparently this did used to be a comic strip and also loosely based on a Thomas Hardy novel. Also all the filming was done in Dorset which is where most of his novels are set. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed the film more if I had watched and had known about the comic beforehand. As much as I enjoyed it I did find that it is a film that has been made too much of. It would work better as a mini television series. Even though it is classed as a comedy I only laughed about 2 times throughout the whole film. There are only a few scenes which I felt actually worked. Stephen Frears said himself half way through the film that he doesn’t actually know what type of film he is making. During the post-production of this, the distributor sought and was given advice on how to secure the desired classification. Following this advice, certain changes were made prior to submission. At the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 Albert Clark won for the Palm Dog Award.