The Land Girls

I always love period dramas, especially films that focus on women and their friendships but this movie left me wondering what the point was after two hours. The three girls come to work on the farm with three totally separate personalities. You have Prue the party girl, Ag the uptight college girl, and Stella who is supposed to be the mainstay of the entire movie, the sensible one. In fact, it is Stella who narrates the movie and opens it with how she moved to the farm to help and be closer to her fiancee. So we establish that she's committed and in love with her fiancee, but within the first 30 minutes, she's falling in love with the farmhand Joe, even after saying how unspeakable he is, for no good reason. Worst of all, the reason is never explained on how she fell out of love with her fiancee and fell in love with Joe. And she seems to have no problem with Joe falling in love, or at least in bed, with everyone else around her. The movie did not make sense to me at that point. Still it is a quiet film with gorgeous English scenery and if you just want a movie that focuses on friendship, then this is the movie for you. I watched it once and that's enough.

Beautifully photographed in the English countryside, this odd film about three English women assigned to work on a farm during World War II provides the promise of heat but never delivers. None of the characters (perhaps the director should have focused on fewer characters to provide proper depth) nor the relationships between the characters are remotely believable. This film exhibits a dangerous trend in films today where the mentality of the 90's is transposed onto the 40's. Directors and screenwriters would be well advised to do more homework on the period in which their films take place. Further, good acting and excellent production values cannot overcome a mediocre script or lackluster direction.

Charming, nostalgic period piece, but this is basically a pretty meat and potatoes film which just about holds the attention. The three actresses in question, Catherine McCormack, Rachel Weisz and Anna Friel are all three superb stage and film actresses, rather wasted on this lightweight stuff.

The plot is predictable, the Dorset scenery is stunning. Worth seeing if you get off on 1940s period and/or English countryside of old. On to the next film.

Whenver I think of women on the home-front during WWII, I picture them in factories taking the place of the men who went to fight. I never really thought that someone had to keep the farms going to feed the people.

Over 30,000 women left the cities in England to form the Land Army and milk the cows and plow the fields while the boys were gone off to fight the Germans.

Having said that, this was basically a Lifetime movie with a couple of laughs. The funniest part was when Ag (Rachel Weisz) decided to lose her virginity.

It was good for a story about the effects of the war on peoples lives, especially their love lives, but there just wasn't a lot there.

Besides Weisz, there was Catherine McCormack (28 Weeks Later) and Anna Friel, who had a bigger WWII role in The War Bride. Of course, we also have to mention Lucy Akhurst, who was a zombie in Shaun of the Dead.

Recommended for Lifetime fans.

Being English might have had something to do with it, but I loved this film. All the acting was outstanding and the multitude of little comic moments had me laughing much more than other 'comedies' that we get from hollywood. Although the central theme of the plot - an unlikely love affair - was a little unbelievable and forced, the gentle pace and quaint bizarre moments, and the refreshing setting made this a view again movie. Weiss character was a little ott at first but she played it beautifully with a surprising comic ability. As for the unintelligible accents, well I suggest that the American market which struggles to understand anything not US formulaic mass media, grows up.