Cranford | Paul Roberts, Ben Wood | the best girl-movie!

Cranford | Paul Roberts, Ben Wood | Cranfield

DVDs:

Cranford

	Cranford Paul Roberts, Ben Wood BBC Warner, 2008 average customer review:based on 93 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

the best girl-movie!

We loved it! This movie is long, but compares very well to a Jane Austen film. It has a few graphic scenes of medical emergencies, but otherwise is very family-friendly. Very sweet!

Cranfield

Cranfield is a wonderfully delightful movie with humor and drama and several love stories developing throughout the 5 hours. It was very enjoyable. I can't wait to watch it again as I know there are several things I will discover that I missed the first time through.

Judi Dench rocks!

A delightfully different period mini-series. Judi Dench is great, as always and there are twists and turns, romance and tragedy in the town of Cranford where the women rule.

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a village of Amazons

A wonderfully engaging translation of several of Mrs. Gaskell's novellas to the screen. While the knitting together of the stories isn't as perfect as the the knitting of the residents of Cranford, it does very well.

The central characters of the story, set in mid-nineteenth century England, are two spinster daughters of a clergyman, Dorothea and Mathilda Jenkyns (Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty to you!) Even though Miss Jenkyns is of a forceful nature (and beautifully portrayed by Eileen Atkins), it is dear shy Miss Matty (Dame Judi Dench) who dominates events because of the respect everyone feels for her sweet nature. They and their neighbors must contend with the changes associated with the disconcerting transformation of rural Britain by the Industrial Revolution, as well as with the inherent challenges of life. The ladies face poverty, death, servant problems, love, wandering cows, evil stepmothers, and questions of attire with aplomb, assisted by a few brave men: the frank and winning Captain Brown; Mr. Morgan, the doctor, and Mr. Harrison, the doctor's new young partner, who has recently set the hearts of all the village maidens aflutter. At a distance reigns the aging but elegant Lady Ludlow and her steward Mr. Carter, who must decide how to deal with a local poacher and his bright and capable young son, and how to pay the mortgage on the estate.

This series is wonderfully acted and beautifully produced--really a living window on a vanished life. Each character grows and develops, sometimes in unexpected ways--sometimes funny and sometimes poignant. The most winning thing was the way in which, as much as they contended and struggled with each other at times, the ladies always faced real emergencies with utter kindness.

Very, very enjoyable.

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Almost a Blue-Ribbon Production

"Cranford,"a recently-made, typically lush British Broadcasting Company comic costume drama, is based on the classic works of Mrs.Elizabeth Gaskell, a celebrated British Victorian-era novelist. The Emmy-nominated production, in five episodes, uses Gaskell's "Cranford,"with added material from two of her short stories, one about Lady Ludlow, and one about young Dr. Harrison. It is set in 1842-3 in a small rural Cheshire town, based by the author on the real town of Knutsford. The gorgeous location filming was done in Hertfordshire; with Ashridge Park, Little Godesden, modeling for Lady Ludlow's estate, Hanbury. It boasts a large cast of top-rank British actors, and more stars than there are in Heaven, as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer used to like to boast.

The story, clearly aimed at the demographic of an older female audience, who love Public Broadcasting Systems "Masterpiece Theatre," and the filmed work of Merchant/Ivory -- just like me, of course, as charged --centers on the women of Cranford, most of them no longer young, robbed of any chance at marriage by the Napoleonic wars. They face unprecedented change, as outsiders start moving into their lovely village, and the railroad approaches. They are also forced to live lives limited by their finances and their social positions in the patriarchal society of the time. Most prominent among them are the acclaimed stage actress Eileen Atkins as Deborah Jenkyns, local social arbiter, and the Oscar-winning Dame Judi Dench as her younger warmer sister, Miss Matty. Imelda Staunton (Miss Pole), Julia MacKenzie (Mrs. Forrester), and Barbara Flynn (Miss Jamieson) do strong, funny work as their satellites. Francesca Annis, still beautiful, gives us an admirable Lady Ludlow. We also get distinguished performances from several more women: Lisa Dillon as Mary Smith; Rosy Byrne as Lizzie Hutton; Kimberley Nixon as Sophy Hutton; Julia Sawalha ("Ab Fab") as Jessie Brown, and Emma Fielding, as Miss Galindo, who seems to utter a lot of thoughts, on the subject of women's difficult lives, that may well have been the author's. As the Tomkinson sisters, Selina Griffiths and Deborah Findlay provide sweet comic relief.

There are also men in Cranford of course, and some very heavy-weight male actors playing them, though their parts are generally lighter than the women's. Chief among them must be the acclaimed Michael Gambon as Mr. Holbrook, a former suitor of Miss Matty's. Martin Shaw shows up briefly as Peter Jenkyns, long-lost brother to the Jenkyns women. Jim Carter is a sturdy Captain Brown. Simon Woods is handsome, and light of touch, as young Dr. Harrison, who comes to town bearing new medical techniques, and somehow gets himself into trouble with the local womenfolk. Philip Glenister as Mr. Carter appears in every episode and may have the strongest, most dramatic individual scenes in the production. And playing right with him, to the hilt, as young Harry Gregson, a poacher's son, is young Alex Etel, who shone so brightly as the little boy in Neil Jordan's film "Millions."

The Cheshire locals, of course, will have their own strong country accent, with which Americans will not be comfortable. And, while looking elsewhere on the Internet, I found a comment about this production: "If you don't know what they're saying, turn on the subtitles." So here comes the subtitle report: if only we could. It is fiddly work indeed trying to turn on those subtitles, and we failed at it in this house. Can't the BBC do better for this blue-ribbon production?

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