Cold Comfort Farm

Both Ebert and Maltin use the adjective eccentric about Cold Comfort Farm. You can say that again! The film is a surprising comedy with its very own special tone. Only a British film could strike such a tone successfully. The film gains not least from its ironic play with our expectations. Do not expect a by-the-book genre film!

Kate Beckinsale is spot on in the role of the indomitable Flora Poste, who has just lost her parents and does not want to eat too much into her inheritance, so she chooses to move from the big city to her distant relatives at Cold Comfort Farm. Life there is not so easy. The grandmother, Ada Doom, rules the house with an iron hand, and if she does not get her way, she has a fit and reminds the whole family that she saw something nasty in the woodshed as a child. Cold Comfort Farm lives up to its name, until Flora gets going. Before the film is over, Flora has changed all her relatives' lives for the better and made the farm deserving of another name.