Tamara Drewe

UK Release: 10th September 2010

Watched on Recorded TV: Wednesday 28th December 2011

Rating: 15

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Runtime: 1hr 51mins

IMDb Plot Synopsis: A young newspaper writer returns to her hometown in the English countryside, where her childhood home is being prepped for sale. There she meets the locals, including pretentious author Nicholas Hardiment and his wife Beth and old flame Andy. 

My Review: Tamara Drewe is a sweet British drama which, while named after one of the characters, I found couple Nicholas and Beth (played by Roger Allam and the lovely Tamsin Greig) much more engaging and they seemed to have a much more interesting (and less predictable plot) than Tamara’s. Tamara was played reasonably well by Gemma Arterton but it was Dominic Cooper, her rock star boyfriend, that made her character work. 

It was comfortably funny and rolls along nicely (like the countryside it is set in!). It was generally enjoyable although not enough time was spent with Tamara, and frankly she didn’t have as much of an effect on the villagers lives as I was expecting. Cooper’s fan girls were also focused on far too much and were rather irritating. Ultimately the pacing was all over the pace, and with so many random characters there wasn’t enough character development for you too fully invest in them. 

It was obvious from the start that Tamara and Andy were ‘meant’ to be together but you barely saw him and so there was little satisfaction when right at the end out of the blue they got together. The predictable nature of the plot let it down a little but there were a few twists and turns that made it an enjoyable rural comedy drama to watch on a rainy afternoon...

Score: 7.5/10