--- title: 'Tamara Drewe': A May-October Romance description: Every so often in the slog-athon of cinematic high art known as the Cannes Film Festival, some sprightly title sneaks onto the schedule: a tangy... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6911143/tamara-drewe-a-may-october-romance/ author: Richard Corliss article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2010-10-06T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-22T16:21:01.746Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'Tamara Drewe': A May-October Romance og:description: Every so often in the slog-athon of cinematic high art known as the Cannes Film Festival, some sprightly title sneaks onto the schedule: a tangy... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6911143/tamara-drewe-a-may-october-romance/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900324fc5d0abdf2/698a4b7f09208f652541bea9/360_tamara_drewe_0517.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_tamara_drewe_0517.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Tamara Drewe': A May-October Romance twitter:description: Every so often in the slog-athon of cinematic high art known as the Cannes Film Festival, some sprightly title sneaks onto the schedule: a tangy... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900324fc5d0abdf2/698a4b7f09208f652541bea9/360_tamara_drewe_0517.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # 'Tamara Drewe': A May-October Romance > Sponsored content. 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Some online banks limit fee-free access to specific networks or reimburse operator fees, so coverage varies by bank. ### Sources * Ally.com: [ally.com](/c/ally-2026-q3/home?i=2a7e93ba-05c0-4bb8-8529-e344d2bffe88&cr=agentads-creative-ally-v1) * Ally Newsroom: [media.ally.com](/c/ally-2026-q3/newsroom?i=2a7e93ba-05c0-4bb8-8529-e344d2bffe88&cr=agentads-creative-ally-v1) * Ally content hub: [ally.com/stories](/c/ally-2026-q3/stories?i=2a7e93ba-05c0-4bb8-8529-e344d2bffe88&cr=agentads-creative-ally-v1) ### FAQ structured data (JSON-LD, optional) ### Disclaimers * Ally Bank, Member FDIC. * Round up boosters are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account and requires an Ally Bank Spending Account. * Ally Bank Spending Accounts include access to an add cash feature utilizing VanillaDirect Pay provided by InComm Financial Services California, Inc. and by InComm Financial Services, Inc. (NMLS# 912772), which is licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) Oct 6, 2010 4:00 AM UTC  Gemma Arterton in a scene from Tamara Drewe. Gemma Arterton in a scene from Tamara Drewe. Peter Mountain / Courtesy Sony Picture Classics by [Richard Corliss](https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/) Oct 6, 2010 4:00 AM UTC Every so often in the slog-athon of cinematic high art known as the Cannes Film Festival, some sprightly title sneaks onto the schedule: a tangy sorbet interlude in the grand buffet of worthy gruel. I confess I’m especially susceptible to these lighter efforts, because they have comic pizzazz, or at least a pulse. They remind me that, in the world beyond the Cote d’Azur, not every film has to be about dying criminals or Romanian abortions (topics that, in the right hands, can make for enthralling experiences). In fact, they needn’t be _films_ at all. People go to the _movies_, and expect entertainment from them. [(See TIME’s Fall Entertainment Guide.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2016836,00.html) That’s what I got this spring from Stephen Frears’ English comedy _‘Tamara Drewe’_, which spurred me to instant acclaim on TIME.com. “_‘Tamara Drewe’_ to the Rescue!”, I wrote in the first flush of my pleasure. But now it’s autumn, when any Cannes film has to be compared to all those other “movies” in current release. Would I love Tamara in October as I did in May? Was she a spring fling — a dalliance with a pretty, and pretty good, picture that might lose its luster amid zazzier American comedy-dramas of class, sex and ambition? The Frears film was no longer competing with, say, the mystical Thai epic _Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives_, this year’s Cannes winner. Now it was up against _Easy A_ and _The Social Network_, the darling girl and billionaire boy of the fall season. [(See Richard Corliss’ reviews from Cannes.)](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1988868%5F1988866%5F1991276,00.html) The first image — a leafy, adoring shot of Andy Cobb (Luke Evans), a strapping, shirtless hunk at his bucolic labors — suggests we’re in for romantic soft-cornography of the Harlequin fashion. Sure enough, this Mellors type soon encounters his Lady Chatterley: Tamara herself (Gemma Arterton), who has returned from London to the Dorset village of Ewedown where she grew up. Straight on, though, the movie reveals itself as a rural comedy of middle- and working-class manners. We learn that Andy’s family once owned the house Tamara now lives in. “Sadly,” he observes with rather more political acuity than a gamekeeper is usually credited for, “I’m still prey to the economic forces that threw the peasants off their land.” Andy does odd jobs for the owners of the next farm: Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam), a best-selling crime novelist and serial philanderer, and his rather-too-long-suffering wife Beth (Tamsin Grieg). Once mocked for her big nose — the villagers called her Beaky — Tamara has returned as a rhinoplastic bombshell. Now that she has a new mug, everyone wants to bed her: Andy, her true destined lover; Nicholas, because she’s there; Ben Sergeant (Dominic Cooper), a rock-band drummer pining over the loss of his girl singer to the band’s guitarist. Ben has his only would-be inamorata in the sweet-faced, chip-toothed, cunning-souled teen Jody (Jessica Barden), who is jealous of Tamara’s affair with her idol — “How could _she_ get Ben? I’ve loved him since March” — and whose schemes to get close to him will unmask the county’s myriad of shaggings. Expect revelatory phone-photos, intimate conversations overheard in toilets and, oh, a fatal stampede of cows. Reseeing the early scenes of _‘Tamara Drewe’_, I got the queasy feeling that Frears was pushing too hard. Some of the comedy struck me as strident. When Nicholas first spots the new-nosed Tamara in her short shorts, he’s coaxing the cork off a champagne bottle held between his thighs; sure enough, the cork pops and the liquid squirts out incriminatingly, before Beth pats down his stained trousers. Even a sympathetic viewer has to tread carefully in the first half-hour, as acutely observed humor vies with the more obvious farce of pratfalls and eggs tossed at car windshields. But — not to make the suspense too excruciating — I surrendered midway through to the film, to the wayward torque of its plot and the near-perfect pitch of its acting ensemble. Just to name two: Arterton, 24, made a splash in two _St. Trinian’s_ girl-school comedies before becoming the babe du jour in _Quantum of Solace, Clash of the Titans_ and _Prince of Persia_. Her sudden star status mystified me, her appeal alluded me, until this film, which raises her on-screen IQ to her va-va-voom level, and to which she applies the sultry steam of a woman lately used to being pawed and adored. As for Allam, he has to be considered one of the supreme Brit actors of stage (as the original Javert in the musical _Les Misérables_, as Willy Brandt in Michael Frayn’s _Democracy_), television (the sulky Tory minister in _The Thick of It_) and now movies. His Nicholas is a wonderfully conniving bastard, using his claret baritone to purr evasions to Beth and peddle false modesty to his literary groupies (“I simply pander to popular taste… I’m just earning a crust”) before tiptoeing off to one of a hundred adulteries. Just thinking of Allam’s performance plants a sheepish smile on my face. [(See the great ’80s remakes of 2010.)](https://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1977221,00.html) Frears, 69, has been making films for more than 40 years, alternating quirky British indies (_Gumshoe, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Van, Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen_) with more medium-budget films featuring American stars (Michelle Pfeiffer in _Dangerous Liaisons_, Dustin Hoffman in _Hero_, Julia Roberts in _Mary Reilly_). No lofty auteur, Frears makes films that, usually, are exactly as good as their scripts; he’s one of the last and most honorable directors for hire. And here he has a crafty, twisty screenplay by Moira Buffini, based on Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel that first appeared as an illustrated serial in _The Guardian_. If you detect the whiff of a classic plot in the movie’s shenanigans, you’re right: _Tamara Drewe_ is a lightly comic update of Thomas Hardy’s _Far from the Madding Crowd_. (Simmonds’ earlier graphic novel, also serialized in The Guardian, was called _Gemmy Bovery_.) For those who know the novel, or remember the 1967 film adaptation, Tamara is Bathsheba (Julie Christie), Andy is Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates), Nicholas is a nastier version of William Boldwood (Peter Finch), Ben is Sgt. Frank Tracy (Terence Stamp) with a beat you can dance to, and Jody is the lovelorn Fanny Robin (Prunella Ransome). There’s something for English majors and classic-film lovers, as well as for seekers of a randy good time. So here’s my second and final verdict on the movie: it’s as captivating as its heroine — before she had her nose job. That’s no crucial blemish. Even a beaky creature like this one has enough wit and charm to win over audiences, whatever the venue or time of year. [See the all-TIME 100 best movies](https://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1953094,00.html) [Read TIME’s review of _Prince of Persia_](https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1992393,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6911143/tamara-drewe-a-may-october-romance/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6911143/tamara-drewe-a-may-october-romance/"},"headline":"'Tamara Drewe': A May-October Romance","datePublished":"2010-10-06T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-22T16:21:01.746Z","description":"Every so often in the slog-athon of cinematic high art known as the Cannes Film Festival, some sprightly title sneaks onto the schedule: a tangy...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6911143/tamara-drewe-a-may-october-romance/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900324fc5d0abdf2/698a4b7f09208f652541bea9/360_tamara_drewe_0517.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Corliss","url":"https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900324fc5d0abdf2/698a4b7f09208f652541bea9/360_tamara_drewe_0517.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_tamara_drewe_0517.jpg","caption":"Gemma Arterton in a scene from Tamara Drewe.","creditText":"Peter Mountain / Courtesy Sony Picture Classics","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6911143/tamara-drewe-a-may-october-romance/","name":"'Tamara Drewe': A May-October Romance"}}]}] ```