Tamara Drewe
The veteran filmmaker Stephen Frears gives birth to a delicious comedy-drama with “Tamara Drewe” trying to find out why so many people would change their skin or simply go back in time. A film funny, charming, sensitive and spiritual everything was half this in the latest Woody Allen.
The relative tranquility of a small British village will soon falter. Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton) is back in an improved version (it has performed cosmetic surgery to shorten her nose she considered too prominent) to create turmoil moult, especially in a home of writers headed by novelist Nicholas (Roger Allam) and his wife Beth (Tamsin Greig).
This was some years since director Stephen Frears had not attacked the comedy. After his uneven but nonetheless gratifying “Honey” with Michelle Pfeiffer, he’s back in shape by carefully implementing the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds. English thoroughly, “Tamara Drewe” offers a horde of colorful characters and endearing that evolve in a bucolic world. Of heroin swollen (Gemma Arterton recalls that his talent being so lacking in “Prince of Persia” and “Clash of the Titans”) to cynical novelist, writer of that other fearful that annoying singer of that careful gardener this devoted wife and two teenage girls who fantasize about sex: everybody is perfectly engaging, capturing almost immediately the viewer’s sympathy.
These beings are at the service of a rhythmic staging can trample halfway, but the script is intelligent dialogue spiced with that accurately describe the effects of passing time. In addition to gently mock the creators write, the man behind the jubilant “The Queen” exposes their desires and their failings, their instincts lead them into trouble sometimes. Like the protagonist who is this ugly duckling triumphant return to the fold, all individuals are obsessed with eternal youth, which will push them to adopt behavior reprehensible and not always laudable.
Inevitable that some (or facilitated) recalled late in the conclusion sometimes sanctimonious. But was it not also the case last year with the very attractive “An Education” Lone Scherfig? Until that new narrative knows how to avoid the pitfalls of pure comedy and hard, reserving a few passages that are more dramatic saving, breaking at once with a certain superficiality which tended to settle gradually.
Alive and sparkling, “Tamara Drewe” is a dream woman who knows generally avoid cliches, including its achievement surprisingly, her lines sharp, beautiful tone, her speeches on, her graceful interpretation and even her soundtrack for the experienced Alexandre Desplat. What issue its director in the good graces, even if this minor effort can never compete with their best album.
