Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9681 in VHS
• Released on: 2002-03-25
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: HiFi Sound, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Cold Comfort Farm is a hilarious spoof on British costume dramas that stars a pre-Pearl Harbor Kate Beckinsale as a strong-willed young woman named Miss Flora Poste, who finds herself orphaned and without means in the 1930s. Moving in with some half-savage relatives on a country farm, Flora is hardly daunted by their primitivism (as she might have been in a novel by Thomas Hardy) but instead takes charge and imposes hygiene, order and good manners on the dirty, superstitious lot. John Schlesinger directs this brisk, infectious adaptation of the 1932 novel by Stella Gibbons. Beckinsale is wonderful and the rest of the savvy, inspired cast perfectly send up a host of literary clichés. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

Synopsis
A young woman, recently orphaned, moves from London to live with her eccentric relatives in the country.

Customer Reviews

SOMETHING NASTY HAPPENED IN THE WOODSHED...
This is a marvelous and fairly faithful adaptation of Stella Gibbons' 1932 novel of the same name. The film brilliantly captures the quirkiness of the novel, which is a hysterically funny, tongue in cheek parody of the heavy handed, gloomy novels of some early twentieth century English writers who had previously been so popular. The film is likewise hysterically funny and itself seems to parody British costume dramas.

The film starts out innocuously enough, when well educated Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale) finds herself orphaned as a young woman. Discovering that her father was not the wealthy man she believed him to be, she is resigned to the fate of having to live on a hundred pounds a year. After some discussion with her good friend, the wealthy Mrs. Smiley (Joanna Lumley), Flora opts to live with relatives, rather than earn her bread. She seeks out a most unlikely set of relations with whom to do so, the decidedly odd Starkadder family who live in rural Howling, Sussex.

Therein begins what is certainly one of the funniest movies to grace the silver screen. When Flora arrives in Howling, she meets her odd relatives, who live in neglected, ramshackle "Cold Comfort Farm", where they still wash the dishes with twigs, and have cows named Graceless, Pointless, Feckless, and Aimless. Headed by a matriarchal old crone, Flora's aunt, Ada Doom Starkadder (Sheila Burrell), who has not been right in the head since she "saw something nasty happen in the woodshed" nearly seventy years ago, they are a motley and strange crew indeed. Confronted with their dismal and gloomy existence, Flora sets about trying to put things to right.

Peppered with eccentric, memorable characters, this film will take the reader on a journey not easily forgotten. Kate Beckinsale is delightful as the practical, no nonsense Flora Poste. Joanna Lumley is delicious as the sophisticated and wordly Mrs. Smiley. Eileen Atkins is a standout as Flora's gloomy first cousin, Judith Starkadder, Ada's daughter. Rufus Sewell is well cast as Judith's son, Seth Starkadder, the oversexed ladies man. The role of the fire and brimstone preacher, Amos Starkadder, is played to perfection by Ian McKellen, while Shiela Burrell is nothing short of sensational as the imperious Ada Doom Starkadder. The rest of the supporting cast is likewise uniformly excellent.

All in all, this is a hilariously funny film and every bit as brilliant as the novel upon which it was based. It is certainly worth having in one's personal collection, as it is a keeper by any standard.

The questions are not important, the answers are brilliant
I was first attracted to this movie due to the presence of Kate (VAN HELSING, UNDERWORLD) Beckinsale who plays chic London socialite Flora Poste in this wonderful, funny and heart warming adaptation of the 1932 Stella Gibbons novel.
Flora, with dreams of becoming a novelist, moves to the rural countryside to live with her great Aunt and her family on Cold Comfort Farm, a down-on-its-luck farmstead deep in the English countryside. There she encounters a number of wonderful eccentric characters who seem to be living in the past - one of them uses a twig to clean the dishes. Flora sets about lifting the doom and gloom that surrounds the farm and bringing 'enlightenment' to the inhabitants by helping to make their suppressed dreams come true.
What makes this movie so much fun is the characters that Flora encounters, and as with such character-driven movies, the choice of actors is so important. Thankfully some strong caliber acting talent was brought in and they equip themselves wonderfully. From Ian McKellen of the LORD OF THE RING'S trilogy to Rufus (A KNIGHT'S TALE) Sewell the results are exemplary.
Raised for the first ten years of my life on my grandfathers farm on the English-Scottish border, I found the movie a particular delight. Though clearly over-the-top some of the observations of country living (from Gibbons) awakened a strange sense of nostalgia and wondering how life had been for my grandfather back in the 1930s and 1940s.
This is a gem of a movie and I encourage everyone to give this movie a chance.

Truly Brilliant and Hilarious Piece of Literature
This is an absolutely hysterical book, with charicatures of the 1920's bursting from every page. It's every bit as hilarious today. The movie, too, is brilliant.