'The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.'
What a great opening line and it belongs to the novel which this is adapted from. It got me immediately hooked.
What also helped was an astonishing performance from actor Jack Hollington who played Leo.
The film starts with Leo as an old man (Jim Broadbent) going back to revisit the summer of 1900 which had a profound effect on his life.
As a 12 year old boy he went to stay with a well to do school friend Marcus and his family, it becomes apparent that Leo is from a more modest background and has to adjust to a society of privilege and wealth.
Leo is struck by the beautiful Marian who is due to be engaged to Viscount Trimingham (Stephen Campbell Moore) and therefore set herself up for life. However he has been disfigured in the Boer War and Marian has been having a passionate affair with tenant farmer Ted Burgess (Ben Batt smoldering like a younger Rufus Sewell for all his worth.)
Leo is used by Marian and Ted as a go-between carrying secret messages between the two, yet he also used to convey messages between Trimingham and Marian.
Leo realises even at his tender age that the affair between lowly Ted and Marian is doomed and also he has been used by Marian. Her kind acts to get new clothes for him had ulterior motives.
It was a fast moving adaptation, very much cut down from all the flab. It kept the class divisions subdued, even Trimingham a war veteran aims to have cordial relations with his tenants in the estate but definitely wants to win the cricket match against his farmers.
Lesley Manville gives an icy performance as Mrs Maudsley, Marion's mother who suspects what she has been up to but hell bent on her marrying Trimingham. Even Trimingham suspects she is not entirely his hence why he would like Ted to join the army.
I have not seen the 1971 film version but I guess seeing Julie Christie and Alan Bates together again would probably had taken my mind back to their earlier pairing in Far from the Madding Crowd which kind of has a few superficial similar plot elements.
There is a coda at the end as the older Leo encounters the older Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) which rounds off the story. Leo however is still haunted by the past.
What a great opening line and it belongs to the novel which this is adapted from. It got me immediately hooked.
What also helped was an astonishing performance from actor Jack Hollington who played Leo.
The film starts with Leo as an old man (Jim Broadbent) going back to revisit the summer of 1900 which had a profound effect on his life.
As a 12 year old boy he went to stay with a well to do school friend Marcus and his family, it becomes apparent that Leo is from a more modest background and has to adjust to a society of privilege and wealth.
Leo is struck by the beautiful Marian who is due to be engaged to Viscount Trimingham (Stephen Campbell Moore) and therefore set herself up for life. However he has been disfigured in the Boer War and Marian has been having a passionate affair with tenant farmer Ted Burgess (Ben Batt smoldering like a younger Rufus Sewell for all his worth.)
Leo is used by Marian and Ted as a go-between carrying secret messages between the two, yet he also used to convey messages between Trimingham and Marian.
Leo realises even at his tender age that the affair between lowly Ted and Marian is doomed and also he has been used by Marian. Her kind acts to get new clothes for him had ulterior motives.
It was a fast moving adaptation, very much cut down from all the flab. It kept the class divisions subdued, even Trimingham a war veteran aims to have cordial relations with his tenants in the estate but definitely wants to win the cricket match against his farmers.
Lesley Manville gives an icy performance as Mrs Maudsley, Marion's mother who suspects what she has been up to but hell bent on her marrying Trimingham. Even Trimingham suspects she is not entirely his hence why he would like Ted to join the army.
I have not seen the 1971 film version but I guess seeing Julie Christie and Alan Bates together again would probably had taken my mind back to their earlier pairing in Far from the Madding Crowd which kind of has a few superficial similar plot elements.
There is a coda at the end as the older Leo encounters the older Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) which rounds off the story. Leo however is still haunted by the past.