Tamara Drewe me in

Tamara Drewe, a new film by Stephen Frears, who directed one of my all-time favourite movies, Prick Up Your Ears, feels like an instant feel-good Brit classic, from a happier time - and it is sadly ironic to see this well-reviewed pic open with thanks to the UK Film Council, now axed. The movie, based on a series of cartoons from The Guardian, which I followed when in Budapest and Paris about ten years ago, manages to retain almost all the key story-boarding beats from the drawings of Posy Simmonds (the title is of course an anagram of Me Draw Art). We are invited in to an idyllic pastoral, disrupted as in the best English farce, by middle-class poseurs and love-rats.

What makes the film so deliciously ripe - the cinematography is sun-burnished and hyper-idealised, so Dorset becomes a new Eden - is how it enjoys satirising a variety of familiar British types from other films and TV shows - the pompous crime novelist; the lesbian creative writer; the suffering plain wife; the self-obsessed rock drummer; the visiting American academic; the hunky local boy; the Australian bar slattern; the sex-crazed teenage girls; and the sexy Independent columnist. Tamara Drewe is as cosy as a cuppa, but thrums with a low note of doom and malice, as betrayals, lies, and crimes of passion mount. The denouement, in a cow-crowded field, with several gunshots, feels as dramatic as something from Howard's End, or indeed, Hardy.

The lead actress Gemma Arterton reveals herself to be wildly attractive - a sort of British Bardot - and could be set for stardom after this. Perhaps the funniest, most charming English comedy since Notting Hill, it will be fun to see if Americans fall under the spell, or if this proves to be a confection that spoils on shipment. Four specs out of five!

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Search This Blog