Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

macblackslair I like some of the cast of 'Tamara Drewe' (Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper) so I watched it.The movie started to annoy me when Tamara hit the screen. Nose job? Hot pants? Only interested in getting laid? There was nothing to like about that girl and her character could never reach or even convince me. Instead, I as an author felt embarrassed by this portrayal of a young journalist who returns to her English home in the fictional village Ewedown. I met even more annoying and repellent characters there, for example womanizer Nicholas Hardiment (played by Roger Allam).The performances where fine (partly) but the script kept annoying me. Tamara is someone I would try to avoid. The same applies to Nicholas. Landscape and settings were just fine and enjoyable but still this comedy failed to entertain me. It was far too silly. There are some British films I appreciate. Unfortunately, 'Tamara Drew' is not one of them.

miss_lady_ice-853-608700 The current IMDb rating is harsh, and inaccurate. Whilst the film might be messy in structure or focus, it always remains entertaining and even emotional.The graphic novel that this film is adapted from is a modernisation/ comic variation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, Far From The Madding Crowd, and for fans of the novel, it's particularly entertaining to see how they took elements of the novel and transposed them to the modern day. In this film, the beautiful cosmetically-enhanced Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton) returns to her home town, where she was the ugly duckling. She becomes torn between farmer Andy (Luke Evans), whom she had a fling with in her teens, and rock star Ben (Dominic Cooper). Andy is of course the equivalent of sturdy farmer Gabriel Oak and Ben is the equivalent of dashing Seargeant Troy. The updating works quite well, particularly in the case of Ben. Both Andy and Ben are believable caricatures- remember, this is a comic version of FFTMC. Wessex becomes a small rural town called Ewedown, where nothing happens and the kids are bored out of their mind.Readers of the novel will wonder where William Boldwood, the spare part in what is really a love triangle, is. This is where the film departs from the novel so those of you who haven't read the novel can breathe a sigh of relief and those who have read it can tentatively read on. The spare part in this film's love triangle is Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam), a paunchy middle-aged crime novelist and serial cheat. He and his wife Beth (Tamsin Grieg) run a writer's retreat, which provides a good chance for satirical comedy, though it seems to belong in another film. Hardiment is based more on Thomas Hardy than William Boldwood, and so we get many allusions to Hardy, particularly from American academic Greg (Bill Camp), who pines for Hardiment's wife.Thought that that's a lot of characters? Well, you get even more: two interfering schoolgirls who meddle in Tamara's love life. The pivotal Valentine in the novel is now an email sent to Andy, Ben and Hardiment.Taken all that in? Here's my opinion then. Despite the apparent clutter, this is actually a lightly funny film, and in some parts very moving. People have criticised Gemma Arterton for being too 2D but I think she convincingly portrays a vain beauty who enjoys her power over men. Tamara is an object, rather than a subject. The most interesting characters are Hardiment (played to slimy perfection by Roger Allam), Beth (a sympathetic portrayal by Tamsin Grieg) and Greg (a tragicomic performance from Bill Camp). The trailer leads you to think that the film is all about the young people, whereas much of the enjoyment lies in the Hardiments' disintegrating marriage. The schoolgirls provide humour but they're not entirely necessary.All in all, this is a fine film, of particular interest to Hardy fans. It's a much better modernisation than Trishna, that's for sure.

robert-temple-1 This is a wonderful film by Steve Frears, one of the best he has ever directed. The casting is perfect, and the performances are all perfect as well. The film is set in Dorset, and was largely shot on location there. (Dorset, for those who do not know, is in the southwest of England, is very rural, and is where Thomas Hardy set most of his novels, using the invented name of 'Wessex' to designate Dorset and its surrounding areas.) The film is sublimely subtle in its humour and its satire, which is important, because the entire film is satirical. Every character is the focus of affectionate and gentle satire, and no one is taken at face value. Some of the characters are more extreme examples than others. For instance, the successful crime novelist played by Roger Allam is shown as a suffocatingly smug, self-regarding, egotistical, conceited ass, wallowing in his commercial success and taking that as proof of his superiority over other mere mortals. He is the most antipathetic of the characters by far, as he is meant to be. The most powerful performance in the film, surprisingly, is by a young girl named Jessica Barden. She plays a 15 year-old schoolgirl who is obsessed with a pop star. Not since CLUELESS (1995) has such a hilarious and powerful satire of a teen-aged girl been seen on screen. Barden was actually 17 when she filmed this, but she is small and looks convincingly 15. By stealing the show, she reminds me of the young stage actress Bryony Hannah who stole the stage show of Lillian Hellman's THE CHILDREN'S HOUR in London in 2010, eclipsing those two ancient actresses Keira Knightley and Elizabeth Moss. Sometimes these kids can walk away with the prize, leaving the older pros behind in the dust. Jessica Barden is even more overwhelming a screen presence than Juno Temple, another young actress who steals scenes from her elders all the time. With kids like that around, no older actress's laurels are safe. Compared to Barden, who is as wild as if she were high on coke throughout the shooting, Gemma Arterton as the title character Tamara Drewe comes across as so tame she seems half-asleep. But that adds to the charm of her dotty character. She is meant to be rather dreamy and tentative, since she is after all recovering from a nose job. When she was younger she had a huge nose which spoiled her appearance, and she was rudely called 'Conk'. Now she is a sexpot with a small nose and all male heads turn as she passes. So she returns to the tiny village, or hamlet, of Ewedown in Dorset, where she grew up, ostensibly to sell her mother's house, but really to parade her new self amongst those who knew her before. (As regards Ewedown, for those not familiar with farming, it perhaps should be mentioned that a ewe is a female sheep, just as a sow is a female pig, and a mare is a female horse, and just as there is nothing I can name that is anything like a dame. I think I should charge for all this advice.) Well, old flames rise from the cinders of the past, and are fanned by various tumultuous events (or at least what passes for tumult in a village). And then there is Jessica Barden sneaking into Tamara's house and sending wicked emails which people think are from Tamara. Naughty, naughty. The other 'best performance' in the film (I know there cannot be two 'bests', but who cares about grammar when making a point) is by the amazing Tamsin Greig, as the long-suffering wife of the conceited crime novelist. She simply acts everyone but Barden right off the screen. Greig is primarily known for her television and radio work, but she really ought to be in lots more feature films, especially as she has perfect comic timing and can also do trauma, sadness, and shock really well. Luke Evans plays a hunk and does very well at it, if you like hunks, and girls do, for some mysterious reason which I have never fathomed. (Girls also wonder why gentlemen prefer blondes.) He once dumped Tamara when she was a young 'Conk', but still loves her and hovers round the edges, occasionally peering through her windows. Dominic Cooper is marvellous as a spoilt rock star who has tantrums. He provides an excellent caricature. A main aspect of the story is a centre for aspiring writers in the village, presided over by the dutiful Greig and her arrogant husband. This provides scope for some high comedy concerning the 'residents', including one who will not allow anyone to speak to him when he has his hat on. The earnest American with writer's block who is supposed to be writing a biography of Hardy is the most charming, and is well portrayed. Someone has described this film as 'drenched in sarcasm', but I think a better description is 'soaked in satire'. The satire is not cruel, so it is wrong to call it sarcasm. The general theme of this film is the follies of which we are all capable, and it takes delight in showing us how silly we all are, but it does so gently. The whole thing is great fun, and so entertaining. People with no sense of humour will not understand a thing. This film is a comedy with such a light touch that its humour seems to brush you with a feather. It is really very, very difficult to pull off a comedy of this kind successfully. It is far easier to shoot tragedy than a successful comedy. When the crew start laughing you know you are in trouble, because that means you are doing too many 'in-jokes' and the public won't like it or understand it. This thoroughly delightful film wafts across our funny bones like a Dorset breeze.

simona gianotti "Tamara Drew" is the typical irreverent British comedy, where comedy is not for its own sake, on the contrary the witty humour leaves space to some reflection upon human relationships, and love is responsible of all the twists and damages within the story. But what is interesting is not the story itself, which is quite lacking any significance, being the plot in the service of the characters, as they are more complex than they may seem. At the beginning they appear as prototypes of human vices or virtues: the unfaithful husband, the good supporting and reconciling wife, the sex bomb who would make every man fall into her bed, the good-hearted intellectual who still has some moral values... and in a way they are. But as the story progresses it helps reveal their complexity, to come to the conclusion that life is more simple than people often pretend it to be. The movie offers amusing moments, but it gets in a way a black comedy , mainly in the end, revealing some crudity, as if some kind of justice has to be rendered. The cast is explosive, the actress playing Tamara is undoubtedly suitable for her role, all the people living in the village are authentic and credible, showing a good chemistry between them, and the two girls, mainly Jodie, are really sparkling. On the whole, an entertaining product, full of humour to be explored.