(2010) It's summer at the Stonefield writers' retreat near the Dorset village of Ewedown - "bumhole of nowhere," according to bored, potty-mouthed, 15-year-old Jody Long (Jessica Barden) with her teen girlfriend Casey Shaw (Charlotte Christie) - where Glen McCreavy (Bill Camp), an American professor of literature, is spending his sabbatical working on a book about novelist Thomas Hardy, on whose story of Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors this delightful comedic cinema is loosely based. A "loser's loser," Glen is both creatively blocked and constipated.

The retreat is the home of the hugely popular author of crime fiction, with its randy character Inchcombe, Nicholas Handiment (Roger Allam) and his wife of 25 years Beth (Tamsin Grieg), who performs most of the work on the farm along with cooking for and seeing to other needs of the guests as well as answering her husband's fan mail. "Well, we try to keep it peaceful here," says Beth: "Far from the madding crowd."

Beth has help from handsome odd-job man Andy Cobb (Luke Evans), Casey's uncle, who admits to Glen he's been a ne'er-do-well himself, though he was born in the fine old house on the nearby Winnard farm, since sold to the Drewes family. As the group of writers is conversing among themselves while eating alfresco, Beth begins an angry row with Nicholas ("We're surrounded by novelists") over yet another instance of his philandering, providing the guests with new material for their fiction; later Glen ("This is why I'm glad I'm single"), seated on the toilet, is privy to their kissing and making up.

While the events for the most part are farcically funny, playing off Hans Christian Andersen's tale - the ugly duckling gets the Thomas Hardy treatment - this British romantic comedy directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Moira Buffini, adapting Posy Simmons's graphic novel, concludes in Hardyesque fashion. Following her mother's death, journalist Tamara Drewe (Gemme Arterton, who played Tess in the 2008 TV mini-series Tess of the D'Urbervilles) arrives back in the "dump" where she'd been raised with the intention of fixing up and selling the property; she hires Andy, who had had a thing with her until he dumped her at 20, to do the refurbishing.

Everyone who knew Tamara from her youth, when she'd had an ugly beak, is struck by her transformation ("completely different") after having a nose job, though everything else appears to have been standard equipment. Glen observes: "Life sure comes easily for the beautiful."

After inviting Ben Sergeant (Dominique Cooper, who played a similar role as Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility), the drummer and song composer of the indie-rock band Swipe, to her house for an interview, she becomes involved in a torrid affair, which inflames eavesdropping Jody, Ben's biggest fan, with passionate fantasy.

In the autumn, Andy becomes jealous of Ben in his yellow Porsche, who proposes marriage to Tamara with the ring he bought for his previous fiancée Fran. Commenting on Hardy's The Well-Beloved and the Victorian author's own preference for much younger women, Glen quotes Dr Samuel Johnson ("The basis of excellence is truth") when Nicholas asserts that writers are "liars and thieves."

Sneaking into the "Plastic Fantastic's" residence while she and her fiancé are away, Jody and Casey caress Ben's drumsticks, swipe his black shirt, and send an e-mail from Tamara's computer to various recipients: "I'll give you the biggest shagging of your life." The cad, the "cheating wanker," the "sleazebag" "prick" Nicholas comes calling on her, leading Glen to question: "Why does the asshole always get the girl?"

In the spring, Glen returns to Stonefield, where he achieved a breakthrough with his writing the previous year, thanks to Beth's encouragement; where thanks to Casey and Jody's "messing" events are about to unfold to answer Jody's question: "What can ever happen in a place like this?"

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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