Updated: 28 June 1997

COLD COMFORT FARM

Beware. This is not a Merchant-Ivory production. This reality doesn't set in immediately. Instead, you sit through a large portion of the film thinking about how nicely it's done, when all of a sudden, the accumulative effect of all these odd little nuances begins to tickle at the back of your brain. Then, in one glorious instant, the whole thing becomes clear. This isn't Merchant-Ivory at all. Not a M-I wannabe, either. This film steps forward quite certainly on its own footing. It is a comedy with style.

This film is full of phrases that have become iconic to those living under the dank & morose blanket that covers C. C. Farm. In fact, the main conflict in the film is between these icons. The first group includes the phrase above, as well as: "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm," and "...you'll never go, none of you."

On the opposing side is the lone idea of "Robert Post's Child."

Now I'll explain. "Robert Post's Child" is the star of the film, a smart and cheeky city girl who--upon the death of her parents--and after fielding the many offers she has procured--moves to Cousin Judith's farm. It is cursed, Cousin Judith warns her (Cousin Judith is Britain's answer to Morticia Addams). Primarily by the omnipresent Grandmother, who controls all despite being locked away in her room because she "saw something nasty in the woodshed." Those who live there do so because they are trapped by the Grandmother's pronouncements that none of them will ever leave.

But the cursed farm also owes a debt. One of its own once wronged Robert Post. And now his daughter has returned to them, a reminder of their infraction, and totally outside the binding laws of the farm as a result.

Here is where the magic begins. After a while of getting to know the who's and what's of the farm, Robert Post's Child (on the farm, she is never referred to by her name, only by that title, so I'm having a hard time recalling her name) decides she knows what changes need to be made. And she promptly goes about making them.

What follows is a step-by-step deconstruction of the mental traps that hold everyone in place. The heroine is indomitable. It never occurs to her to be afraid, for the fear of change isn't fathomable to her. She marches through the lives of those there without a second thought to the old taboos she is shattering. And it is hilarious. One by one, she sets each person on a new path--the path they were meant for, obviously. I was so thoroughly enjoying these changes that I started labeling them as they came: "the departure of Seth Starkadder," and "the departure of the reverend and his new Ford van," another. She does this until she comes to the source of the stagnation--the Grandmother. Then the two opposing ideas meet, and one is forever undone by the other.

The denouement comes in a wedding scene reminiscent of the one that ends THE BIRDCAGE. On the two sides sit two families. One is sane by normal standards of sanity, and the other--almost is, but not quite, thank goodness. Because without that wonderful streak of near-lunacy, this film would not have been as completely satisfying as it was.