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Rating:  - A stellar cast makes for an engaging period drama
My grand aunt recommended Mary Wesley's books to me recently and I was quickly engaged by her well-written stories. When I learned that The Camomile Lawn had also been adapted for TV, I knew I had to watch it and I wasn't disappointed. The period drama makes for an engaging viewing experience.
The story begins just before the onset of WW II in 1939 England. A middle-aged couple, Helena and Richard are making preparations for their nieces and nephews' arrival at their country estate in Cornwall, the scene of family reunions since summers past. The five cousins are made up of Calypso [a very vampish Jennifer Ehle, of Pride and Prejudice fame], Polly [Tara Fitzgerald], Oliver, Walter, and 10-year-old Sophie who seems lost and unwanted. Oliver, fresh from the Spanish Civil War, finds himself haunted by his experiences, whilst lusting after his virginal, yet catty cousin Calypso. Calypso declares from the very beginning [in response to Oliver's marriage proposal] that she will only marry for money. Polly and Walter are siblings, but very different in character - Walter is unassuming whereas Polly is bold and knows exactly what she wants. She also develops a close relationship with a pair of twin brothers who happen to be next door neighbors.
When war breaks out, the older cousins take off to London - Walter enlists in the Navy, Polly works for the State Department [in a position of secrecy], Oliver enlists in the army, and Calypso finds herself a rich husband, a much older man, Hector who has a tendency towards violence when he is drunk. Young Sophie finds herself confused and aimless, and has a number of troubling experiences that affects her emotionally.
There are many themes in this movie - adultery, pedophilia, grief, women's lib, any many more that might seem sensationalistic but are dealt with in a believable manner and also portrayed credibly by the stellar cast.
I thought the female actors did an amazing job - the over-sexed, materialistic Calypso is credibly portrayed by Jennifer Ehle [playing her natural blond self here] - and there's lots of nudity here. Ehle exposes all of her bits and shows off her luscious curves in many scenes that do not detract from the storyline. So does Tara Fitzgerald as Polly, a bit more practical and easier to like than the selfish Calypso, she is a feminist who takes responsibility for her sexual life [going to visit a gynaecologist for birth control], but makes some controversial decisions in her choice of bed partners. Young Sophie plays a tormented soul - an unsavory experience causes her much grief emotionally, and she is also the recipient of improper sexual advances from various quarters [though its handled with 'delicacy' in the movie so as not to offend our sensibilities].
The male characters are less appealing, though the violinist Max Erstweiler, a Jewish refugee from Europe is quite brilliantly portrayed - he is a genteel philanderer [if there can be such a term] - sleeping with all and sundry [in fact he works his way through most of the female characters here!]. Uncle Richard, who only has one leg, is a comic and also tragic character, harboring some very improper desires. Oliver and Walter were pretty insipid characters and I didn't much care for them. The twins were interesting but their characters were not fully explored.
This makes for an interesting and engaging viewing experience - it follows the characters as they traverse the period of WW II and portrays how their lives are affected by the war - one would think that wartime would impose strictures on one's life, and though it does, it was also a time for inhibited behavior, where the fear of one's mortality led to reckless sexual behavior and propriety was ignored. I liked how the notion of 'town wife' and 'country wife' was explored here.
This should appeal to those interested in WW II period dramas, focussing on societal and social changes on people of the period, both old and young.
Rating: - One on the best British mini-series of the 1990s
The Camomile Lawn was one of the best UK mini-series of the 1990s. It's fun and beautifully written. It's a family drama set during the early years of World War II. The friends, are mostly 18 or 19 and join the war effort when war is declared. In the last episode the characters meet at a funeral thirty years later, giving it similarities to the Big Chill. Many of the US reviewers seem concerned about the nudity and the incest. With death all around them, the lead characters live for today and take a hedonistic approach to sex and booze.
Nudity is fairly common in UK TV drama. Regarding incest, Helena and Richard Cuthbertson are childless, but every summer they invite their nieces and nephews for a holiday to their home in Cornwall. Richard's nieces: Sophy, Polly and Calypso Cuthbertson are not related by blood to the main male characters, Helena's nephew Oliver or the Floyer twins. There is no incest. The film has strong female characters who all seem wise, pragmatic and fun. The men mostly seem flawed and weak in some way. They are either dim-witted, obsessed with sex or confused about what they want. It's a great series.
Rating:  - This was on Television?
I inititally wanted to watch this for one main reason -- I'm a huge fan of Felicity Kendal, and the chance to see her in something with her former "Good Neighbors" co-star Paul Eddington was especially intriguing. And, reading the product description it looked fairly interesting. A period drama set during WWII. Just my cup of tea. Alas, it was not interesting at all. (To paraphrase Sophy, [who was describing her feelings about having her uncle put his hands up her skirt "Not awful. Just boring.")
The mini-series was, apparently, based on a 'best-selling novel', a 'best-seller' that was, equally apparently, of the 'trashy' variety, because it turned out to be a tale of a group of people who are completely wrapped up in sex. Every scene involves characters having sex, talking about having sex, talking about why they won't have sex, and planning to have sex.
So [spoilers ahead] ... Helena is married to Richard, but has a long-standing affair with Max ... who manages to ALSO have sex, at some point, with every other female charcter. Richard has an equally long standing affair with Max's wife, while at the same time molesting little children. Bleached blonde Calpyso wants to marry for money,(AND is 'saving herself for marriage') and quickly finds herself a Scottish laird to oblige her. (And she reminds the other charactesr, and us, at least 50 times that she married him ONLY for his money.) Having disposed of her virginity, she goes on to bed every other man she can find. Beautiful brunette Polly is fitted with a diaphragm (on camera) and goes on to put it to excellent use.In between several other love affairs, she discovers the joys of a menage with a pair of identical twins. Little Sophie never wears knickers when it's hot outside, has a mad panic when flashed by a strange man on the path, but just finds it 'boring' when Uncle Richard puts his hand up her skirt.
And, to my amazement, since there was no mention of it on either the Amazon.com description OR the DVD packaging, this is all made all the more 'realistic' by repeated (mostly gratuitous) scenes of full-frontal female nudity. (Creative camera angles obscure the men's naughy bits, but the ladies [Felicity Kendal excepted] are viewed in all their glory.)
This would have been tolerable if it had all be accompanied by a remotely interesting plot, or well-defined characterization, but there is no plot, and we don't really learn much of anything about anyone. Oh, and they neglected to mention (in the modern parts) WHY Helena suddenly took to drinking, why everyone hates Paulie so much, and why even a non-practicing Jew would be buried with a Christian funeral rite in a Christian church and church-yard.
On the positive side (searching for something good to say), the Cornish scenery is lovely, and it IS quite well acted, for the most part.
One more negative -- completely bare-bones DVDs. No extras of any kind, no subtitles, and no tv-based closed captioning.
Rating:  - I was robbed!
I wanted to see this movie because I like actor Toby Stephens and wanted to see something of his early work. I thought the first three episodes were great in their portrayal of the the lives of young people and their struggles with love and growing up in prewar and wartime England. I felt a real fondness for the characters after all they'd been through together by the end of the first disc (first three episodes). However, the last two episodes (disc two) were a disappointment. After becoming attached to these endearing young people and their characters, we are robbed of them as they age and turn into different people (actors) all together. Why not use the same actors and age them? Surely makeup and clothing can do that! Additionally, the whole ending was too quick and short and very anticlimactic. But perhaps that is what war does to all of us, it changes us into different people and we are all robbed of certain ones we have loved, so maybe it is appropriate that we loose those young people in the end. Still though, I was sorry not to get to see more of Toby Stephens. He has only one scene in the fourth episode and none at all in the fifth (disc two). So I only gave it three stars, one star per episode that I liked.
Rating: - MELODRAMA
I wanted to really enjoy this miniseries because of the good reviews and because of the subject matter--generally favorable reviews from pros and the general public about an extended family reminiscing about their lives before, during and after World War II. However, I just found the whole effort along with its characters rather tedious. I have not read the novel by Mary Wesley that this miniseries is based on. Perhaps that is my problem. Nevertheless, I just found the entire presentation along with its characters and its tremendous amount of sex to be very melodramatic I don't consider myself to be a prude; however, with everyone either "getting it on" or trying desperately to "get it on" I grew a little weary of the story and its subject matter.
This presentation has many good actors that I have admired in other performances but NOT in this one. I adored Jennifer Ehle in "Pride Prejudice" but found her as blond Calypso in this outing to be very shallow and unconvincing as this rather ditzy character. . I also adored Toby Stephens as Philby in `Cambridge Spies" but not as extremely randy Oliver which I just found the character to be annoying, In fact I did not care for Felicity Kendal or her most irritating husband played by Paul Eddington (both of "Good neighbors fame). I did not find them to be interesting at all. I just found it impossible to "connect" with any of the characters or characterizations. (The one thing I can say about the characters in this presentation is they remained dreary from youth to old age and they remained so no matter who portrayed them even if it were the likes of Claire Bloom (Sophie in old age) or Rosemary Harris (Calypso in old age)
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