Tamara Drewe – The Movie Review by Mark Stafford

Mark Stafford is one of my favourite comic creators on the planet. I had the privelege to first publish him in the USA with my Dirtbag and X-Flies comics. Recently he also drew the cover to Civil Wardribe. But in the US he is best known for drawing Bryan Talbot’s Cherubs. He also writes about film and recently saw a preview of Stephen Frears’ new movie Tamara Drewe, based on the graphic novel written and drawn by Posy Simmonds. He writes for Bleeding Cool;

We open in England’s green and pleasant, at a literary retreat and small farm run by Beth and Nicholas Hardiment (Tamsin Grieg and Roger Allam.) She dutifully bakes the scones, runs the farm and types up the manuscripts of her crime writing husband, he concentrates on having affairs and basking in the praise of his fan base. Their marriage already seems to be on shaky ground- to the entertainment of her guests- before the return to the village of ex ugly duckling Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), now a London columnist with a new nose job, back in town to sell her old house and cause chaos amongst the locals. Much bedhopping and entertainingly breezy business follows involving an indie rock drummer(Dominic Cooper), two bored and starstruck local teens (Jessica Barden and Charlotte Christie,) Tamara’s ex boyfriend handyman(Luke Evans), an American academic (Glen McCreavy,), and a herd of stampeding cows. There is sex and death, hearts are broken, books are written, and it all turns out just about alright in the end.

Stephen Frears, a director who usually delivers solid film-making to order, no matter what the budget or genre, does his usual fine work here. It’s basically Sunday evening TV stuff, with lots of gorgeous rolling countryside and intrigue amongst the middle classes, but it’s in no way ponderous or conservative, and nips along at a fair clip. Most of the good stuff is straight from Posy Simmonds graphic novel, pretty faithfully adapted by Moira Buffini, and the creators of the film have done a great job getting the tone of Simmonds work right, especially her ear for voices. Whist the characters here are archetypes of one kind or another, they are at least well observed archetypes given sharp and funny dialogue, and there is much barbed commentary amongst the merlot and mince pies. The brit-lit scene, with its two faced posturing and endless wrangling over status and sales, is nicely skewered.

Much of the pre- publicity has concentrated on how damn fine Gemma Arterton looks in a pair of Daisy Dukes, and whilst I think we can all agree that she looks pretty damn fine, the film is given a real emotional ache by Tamsin Greig’s Beth, who breaks your goddamn heart as a fine woman doomed to be treated as a doormat by her appalling husband. Roger Allam is perfect as a philandering egotist who seems incapable of doing the right thing, (his physical resemblance to Christopher Hitchens adds an intriguing element to his portrayal of an utter prick.) And the rest of the cast are fine, especially Jessica Barden’s Jody, a 15 year old celebrity sex obsessed young girl who provides he film with some of its queasiest, funniest moments.

The more films out there that proclaim “ based on a graphic novel” in their credits but aren’t out to sell you a bunch of fucking toys, the better. Tamara Drewe is, essentially, great fun, there are a couple of false notes but generally it tells it’s twisting tales in a   diverting fashion throughout. The literary setting allows it to play games with its own narrative that a strictly realist treatment wouldn’t allow, (I suspect a reviewer more familiar with the works of Thomas Hardy would have noticed more echoes than I did) and I hope it leads a lot of new  readers to Posy Simmonds rather wonderful work Though I notice that ,as with nearly all adaptations of graphic novels, the director can’t help introducing a bit of split screen here and there to signal this, I am declaring that this is now officially a cliche. And you should all stop it. That is all.

Mark Stafford is a cartoonist who also writes about film for Electric Sheep and Vertigo – visit hocus-baloney.com.