Movie Review: 'Tamara Drewe'

Quirkiness and charm need to come naturally. If a movie tries too hard to emanate these qualities, severe backlash occurs – instead of coming off as off-beat and original, they end up feeling unnecessary and annoying. Well, welcome to TAMARA DREWE: a soap opera-like, British sex romp (minus the sex appeal) with too many characters to keep straight, or to even care to try. When Tamara Drewe, a once ugly duckling turned sex kitten (thanks to a nose job) returns to her old family farm where she grew up to settle her late mothers estate, she turns the whole village upside down, including an old flame, has-been rock star Ben (Dominic Cooper), 15-year-old Jody who’s in love with Ben, and the writers at a farmhouse retreat. With snippets of clever British humor, TAMARA DREWE seesaws back and forth from having a good direction to trying too hard to be quirky and different…making it feel like a girl who seems attractive at first glance, but when you get closer, see that she has pounds of makeup caked onto her face. And unfortunately, TAMARA DREWE wasn’t even particularly attractive from far away.

The performances were good enough, I suppose; despite her particularly boring character, Gemma Arterton plays Tamara with the teasing nature that would drive any guy of any age insane. But the real star, I must say, is her daisy-duked ass—which is given far more screen time than the actresses face…or any other actors’ for that matter. Even so, the film is so flat at times, and I had such indifference towards all of the characters and their relationships, that no number of shots of her ass half hanging out of her shorts brings the sizzle the movie needed to actually get cooking.

Rating: C-