Cold Comfort Farm

Wikipedia Summary:  Cold Comfort Farm is a 1995 British comedy film directed by John Schlesinger and produced by the BBC and Thames Television, an adaptation of Stella Gibbons’ 1932 book of the same name, the film stars Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen and Rufus Sewell. Originally broadcast on 1 January 1995 on the BBC, it was Schlesinger’s final film shot in his home country of Britain, and was picked up for theatrical release in North America through Gramercy Pictures, where it was a small success.

One thing about subscribing to a streaming service like Netflix is that it makes it easy to give up on movies that don’t capture one’s attention from the very start.  Cold Comfort Farm is such a film for me as I very nearly gave up the ghost at about the 20 minute mark. It’s not that it was bad, it wasn’t, just a but too perfunctory, and while I’m glad I kept going that feeling that things are perhaps a tad too tidy for Flora never completely goes away.  Still, it’s quite charming in its own way and has much to recommend it–the debut performance from a stunningly beautiful Kate Beckinsale,  a cast that includes Ian McKellen clearly whooping it up in a role that’s a far cry from Gandalf or Magneto, and most of all, for me at least, it’s a well-done character study featuring a young woman do-gooder who, thankfully, just can’t seem to keep herself from meddling, and Amelie has quite given me quite a taste for those.

P.S.- Oh, yeah, “I saw something nasty in the woodshed!”

You can watch the trailer here.