Review of Tamara Drewe (2010) by Richard F — 06 Sep 2010

I went to see this at a special screening followed by a Q&A with the director.

The story is nothing earth shattering but the characters are all interesting, there are lots of laugh out loud moments and the actors are all great. Dominic Cooper, who I always think is an annoying little weasel, plays an annoying little weasel to good effect. Gemma Arterton looks hot and plays her part well but the real stars are a couple of teenage girls who are the sort of R2D2 and C-3PO of the story, fringe characters/ narrators who throw several spanners in the works. As the film-makers mentioned this is being promoted on the back of Gemma Arterton's arse (which does make a welcome, though slightly out of focus appearance) but there is much more to it than that. This is a film intelligent people can enjoy (I imagine).

Stephen Frears was not at all arty or pretentious, just told it like it was. He seemed to have a great sense of humour too, giving many witty responses to questions. Less interesting was graphic novel author Posy Simmonds who got the bulk of the questions after the screening but wasn't particularly charismatic.