Cheap Month in the Country (Video) (Colin Firth) Price

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Customer Reviews of Month in the Country

"Hell means different things to different people."
The film "A Month in the Country" is based on the wonderful novel by James Lloyd Carr. It's the story of a young man, Birkin (Colin Firth) who is employed to uncover a mural in a small church located in the village of Oxgodby. Birkin has a nervous twitch and a stammer--remnants of the horrors of WWI. At the church, he befriends fellow WWI survivor, Moon (Kenneth Branagh). Moon is there to excavate the bones of an ancestor of the local nobility. During the course of a beautiful languorous summer, Birkin steadily works to uncover the mural and becomes involved with local villagers--including the vicar's beautiful wife.

Visually, the film is beautiful, and the film does follow the plot of the novel quite faithfully. The acting is excellent--particularly the scenes between the vicar's wife, Mrs. Keach and Birkin. However, while the novel gently stresses the idea that Birkin heals gradually through the combination of the satisfaction with his artistic achievement and the tranquility of Oxgodby, these and other finer points in the novel, are not fully explored. So while the plot is faithful to the novel--it lacks its subtlety and depths. The main fault lies in the fact that Birkin acts as an observer of the story, and the film fails to show how the fateful summer alters Birkin's perspective. He does not seem to digest and interpret the experience--it all just happens--displacedhuman

Nice, very nice.
The 1980s was a decade of costume dramas, with Merchant Ivory as the quality benchmark. Surprisingly perhaps, it was the Edwardian era (1900-1920-ish) that seemed to be the most popular period. Award-winning TV series Brideshead Revisited pioneered the movement but it was Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire that opened the floodgates, and suave young men in stripy blazers and floppy haircuts reigned supreme for ten years. Merchant Ivory of course pretty much cornered that market with Howard's End, Room with a View, etc. but there was no shortage of contenders to the English Costume Drama throne. A Month in the Country capitalised on the seemingly neverending demand for soft-focus costume movies, and indeed, the usual crowd of young, arty film-goers of the mid-80s, me include, lined up for tickets. The story - based on the novel of the same name - sees shell-shocked World War I survivor on an assignment to a remote (and of course idyllic) Yorkshire village to uncover a mediaeval mural in the local church. So far so good. Colin Firth puts an tastefully understated performance as the well-spoken Charles Birkin, while Kenneth Branagh, Jim Carter, Patrick Malahide, Natasha Richardson and just about every other ubiquitous British actor add their own special touches. To be brutally honest, however, nothing much really happens. Passions are thwarted, loose ends are left untied and feelings slowly simmer underneath phlegmatic British exteriors but everything remains unresolved. In short we are left with an overwhelming feeling of anti-climax. Even the drama is deliberately toned down, suggesting perhaps that Month in the Country would have come across better on television - perhaps as a series. A very nice movie, but a blockbuster this most definitely is not.