Kate Bekinsale plays a chic young woman who inherits a pittance and, to save money and perhaps gather material for a novel, moves to remote Cold Comfort Farm. She gets more than she bargained for. First of all, the farm is really a farm, with cows, pigs, horses and barns. Second, it's a sprawling, dilapidated affair, which one character refers to as "the house of Usher." Third, the place is cluttered and filthy and no one cares. Fourth, the half dozen or so residents are just as filthy as the floor and seem to have been inbred for generations. Finally, they are apparently ruled by an old madwoman who sequesters herself in an upstairs room and mutters about having once seen something nasty in the woodshed.
Now, these are all very queer characters and each in his own way is a fit case study of psychopathology. Perhaps the most interesting is the preacher, who carries on in the local church, the walls of which are spritzed with lurid graffiti, about how much hell hurts. Did you ever burn your finger? It hurt, didn't it. And what did you do about the burned finger? You put butter on it. Well, friends, THERE IS NO BUTTER IN HELL. Man, there is material enough for a dozen novels.
There is a problem with a movie so filled with nuts though. It reminded me of a movie I'd worked in, "Crimes of the Heart," written by Beth Hemsley, about three quirky sisters, any one of whom would have provided a viable narrative. But "Crimes of the Heart," like "Cold Comfort Farm," really has nowhere to much go.
In this movie, Kate Bekinsale -- a fantasy of pale and vulnerable beauty -- straightens everything out. People wind up married to those whom they should marry. A half-hour, off-screen chat brings the old crone to her senses and she takes off for Paris. The farm ends up in the hands of the most capable of its workers. Bekinsale literally sails off with the handsome young aviator.
Afterwards I felt as if I'd visited a mother who trotted out a handful of lovely children, had them rattle off an idiosyncratic and brilliant version of the Trout Quintet, and then shuffled them outside to play. Gone in a twinkling.
It's interesting without being particularly well constructed. Loved the characters, some of them anyway, and almost fell asleep waiting for the happy ending.
Now, these are all very queer characters and each in his own way is a fit case study of psychopathology. Perhaps the most interesting is the preacher, who carries on in the local church, the walls of which are spritzed with lurid graffiti, about how much hell hurts. Did you ever burn your finger? It hurt, didn't it. And what did you do about the burned finger? You put butter on it. Well, friends, THERE IS NO BUTTER IN HELL. Man, there is material enough for a dozen novels.
There is a problem with a movie so filled with nuts though. It reminded me of a movie I'd worked in, "Crimes of the Heart," written by Beth Hemsley, about three quirky sisters, any one of whom would have provided a viable narrative. But "Crimes of the Heart," like "Cold Comfort Farm," really has nowhere to much go.
In this movie, Kate Bekinsale -- a fantasy of pale and vulnerable beauty -- straightens everything out. People wind up married to those whom they should marry. A half-hour, off-screen chat brings the old crone to her senses and she takes off for Paris. The farm ends up in the hands of the most capable of its workers. Bekinsale literally sails off with the handsome young aviator.
Afterwards I felt as if I'd visited a mother who trotted out a handful of lovely children, had them rattle off an idiosyncratic and brilliant version of the Trout Quintet, and then shuffled them outside to play. Gone in a twinkling.
It's interesting without being particularly well constructed. Loved the characters, some of them anyway, and almost fell asleep waiting for the happy ending.