Review of Tamara Drewe (2010) by Mathieu F — 13 Sep 2010

A pleasant comedy which mostly succeeds at portraying the intellectual and literary bourgeoisie, its petty rivalries as well as its sometimes poignant sometimes ugly sex affairs. The waltz of egos in this gallery of characters is well-rendered.

But the funniest parts are, in my opinion, the disenchanted-yet-innocent view of the two teenagers who only dream of escaping the "dead bump in the middle of nowhere" they live in. Now, while pleasant, the film never manages to get past the just-ironic and mocking smile.

I expected something deeper on our society and its dysfunctions. I saw how much the baby-boomer generation seems, once more, so shallow, so self-centred around the satisfaction of their immediate pleasures and how this is something they manage to transmit to their children and the youngest generations, thereby creating a society based only on egoism and egotism as the cardinal virtues.

However, I'm not sure this is what the director wanted to convey. A pleasant but ultimately somehow failed comedy, falling short of a great film.