Tamara Drewe

Tamara (played by Quantum of Solace’s Gemma Arterton) returns to her rural farmhouse home, right next to a writers retreat run by Nicholas and his wife Beth. As directed by Stephen Frears, Tamara Drewe is a genteel, comely adult comedy-drama where Nicholas’ cad card is exposed early on, and Tamara needs to reconcile who she feels she was in her past with the woman she is today. It’s a breezy comedy, where a few hearts get broken, a herd of cows trample someone under hoof, and the poor boxer who started the stampede receives country justice. Tamara Drewe is one of those formulaic pleasures that punishes the bad and rewards the good, although the bad are really only needy and selfish and the good really only well-meaning. That it all takes place among grownups with adult concerns and brains is a welcome change of pace.