The film is loosely based on Thomas Hardy’s book“Far from the Madding Crowd” about the effect of a beautiful woman and the men who desire her, and is adapted from a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds.
Tamara, a posh girl raised in a Dorset manor and remembered by the locals as a neurotic girl with a massive nose, has moved to London, where she gets her nose bobbed. She returns to her childhood home, after becoming a successful London newspaper columnist, with a gorgeously remodeled nose and suddenly she excites the attention of men to whom she once was invisible.
The film stars Gemma Arterton as the title figure who drives men wild and women to fits of envy when she returns to Dorset to sell the family house. She becomes the talk of Ewedown, her village, where all the creatures are in rut.
Tamara dazzles former boyfriend, strapping Andy Cobb(Luke Evans),once the Drewe stable boy, who still fancies the girl he seduced as a teenager, and brainy Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam), a famous crime writer and serial philanderer, who has Tamara in his sights, much to the dismay of Beth his long-suffering wife and muse whom he scarcely bothers to hide his infidelities from. Beth (Tamsin Greig) runs a writer's retreat in their home, for which she makes mouthwatering meals and desserts, and gives a notable performance as a sad-eyed and betrayed wife.
However London rock god Ben Sergeant (Dominic Cooper) gets in first with Tamara, much to the dismay of some local teenagers who worship him and resent Tamara for coming on the scene and stealing him.
“Tamara Drewe" glides from slapstick to subtle personal drama, moves on to romance and sorrow, and bounces back to buoyant optimism, and has a dry, ironic fondness for even the worst of its characters. The characters scheme against one another and act cruelly, but the crimes they commit are all in the name of love.
Not everyone lives happily ever after, but almost everybody gets what he or she deserves. This film is about as satisfying as it gets.
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