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.

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.

We've seen this kind of story countless times in BBC imports or Danielle Steel novels. There's nothing new about the plot or the characters: saucy working class girl, sensible"head girl" type, and sensitive British lass with eyes for the equally sensitive farmhand. The plot isn't executed in a novel fashion, either, and we can see the rather abrupt ending coming miles away. Still, the leads are quite attractive, with Anna Friel, Catherine McCormack, and Rachel Weisz as the three main land girls of the title and Stephen Mackintosh as the sensitive Dorset lad. Enough so to make it worth a rent on a weekend when all the new releases are checked out!

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.