15 thoughts on “TBT: Cold Comfort Farm (1995)

  1. I understand that this was in part a satire: a Jane Austin heroine in the Thomas Hardy countryside. (And we would love to have a white tourney van with the license frame “There be no butter… in Hell.”)

    1. It was also satiring Mary Webb’s “overwrought” rural-set novels. Which … yeah, most of Mary Webb’s books are rather ridiculous, but Precious Bane is a rare and beautiful thing and one of my favourite books of all time.

  2. I had forgotten this movie; I saw it when it was new and it truly is a gem. Off to rediscover.

  3. Saw this a long time ago; thought it strange but funny. Maybe Seline would have sorted it out better. Fantastic cast.

  4. My dream double bill is this and “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.” We could only find Miss Pettigrew in the available pool. Any suggestions on who might have Cold Comfort for streaming? We howled laughing when we saw it the first time . . . and now we have a woodshed of our own.

  5. One of the few movies I can think of that does complete, or almost complete, justice to a wonderful book. (The novel is full of made-up local dialect, of the sort loved by Hardy and Lawrence in their most intense blood-and-soil-and-life-force moods. Seth likes to mollock. And Significant Scenes Conveying the Author’s Message are marked with an asterisk, sometimes two.)

  6. I’m sorry, I got all woozy about he middle of the page with that picture of Rufus Sewell.

    1. Me too! I am a total sucker for the the dark sultry type! I also have a Woman Crush on Joanna Lumley.

  7. The original novel is actually near-future SF – aeroplanes are far more universal and routine than they were at the time or even now, and Flora’s London gentleman friend is a veteran of a war between Britain and Nicaragua.

  8. I’ve always felt that Kate Beckinsale achieved a better Emma in this movie than in her actual adaptation of Emma. (Though to be fair, my complaints with the version of Emma that she starred in are mostly not due to her.)

Comments are closed.