Despite the promise in the idea, and the fact that Stephen Frears is directing, “Tamara Drewe” is only a small step short of boredom. We’re surrounded by a pretentious, bed-hopping, ego-ridden group of writers and would-be writers, all scorching the sheets, but fortunately, Jessica Barden and Charlotte Christie are on hand to save the day.
They play Jody and Casey, respectively, a pair of bored teenage school girls whose passion is to spy upon the writers and to do their darndest to keep the so-called grown-ups on the edge of panic. The pair, especially Barden, keep the movie moving.
That and the sex, of course. Gemma Arterton, as the title character, is lovely enough to engage anyone’s interest, and the fact that she’s not only beautiful and unattached, but also willing, just adds to the drama. She’s not really a writer, just a newspaper columnist who grew up in the town and turned a few heads. Only after she moved on, and was touched up by a plastic surgeon, did she begin to cause whiplash in passing males.
Roger Allam and Tamsin Grieg have a farm and some cottages, which they rent out to writers as spots to refuel, then to refine and finish their writing projects. Bill Camp is an American who would rather do other things than write his long-planned and -researched book on Thomas Hardy, and Luke Evans is a hunky farmer. Then Dominic Cooper, as a rock star, also returns to his home town to thicken the plot.
Frears, who has directed some delightful movies like “My Beautiful Laundrette” and “Dangerous Liaisons,” seems to be holding back on what could have been a funnier movie, or one that became more serious with research into really important matters like an in-depth, multi-level study about writers and sex.
The movie was based loosely on Hardy’s 1874 novel, “Far From the Madding Crowd,” which was adapted as a comic book (call it a graphic novel if you like; I won’t) by Posy Simmonds. Moira Bufini wrote the screenplay. Julie Christie was a spectacular Bathsheba Everdene in the 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger.
Tamara Drewe opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
—Joe