If ever a movie with a generally realistic setting called for suspension of disbelief, Cold Comfort Farm is it. The viewer is asked to believe that a well brought up but penniless orphan (Kate Beckinsale) comes to live with relatives who mostly despise her and hate one another and who want desperately to leave this wretched, filthy, gloomy farm but cannot do so because of a tyrannical recluse of a family matriarch who is holed up in her room, consuming enormous quantities of food -- and in the course of an hour and a half, the plucky young orphan has transformed the lives of everyone on the farm, including the matriarch and the gloomy, mad cousin who invited her to come live with them because of a unexplained but terrible wrong done to the young woman's father by this family. Kate Beckinsale is outstanding in the role of the orphaned young woman and Ian McKellen effortlessly steals the picture from everyone but Beckinsale in his role as a fire-and-brimstone preacher whom Kate's character persuades to leave the farm to his eldest son and pursue his mission of preaching his terrifying gospel to the world. The picture has its moments, mostly because of Beckinsale and McKellen, though there is also a wonderful bit involving a Hollywood producer friend of the young orphan's who is persuaded to visit the farm and make a movie star of the lecherous younger brother. Mostly, however,Cold Comfort Farm is thin gruel and not nearly as amusing as the people who made it seem to think it is.
Review of Cold Comfort Farm
