Strong and Moving!

Some things I liked some I did not.

Just perfect...

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A Village Affair (1995) was directed by Moira Armstrong from a novel by Joanna Trollope. The plot is fairly basic--a city couple move from London to a country village. Troubles ensue.However, if you look more closely, troubles were brewing already. Nathaniel Parker plays Martin Jordan, a handsome and successful lawyer. He has two women in his life--his wife, Alice (Sophie Ward) and his mother Cecily Jordan (Claire Bloom). There's no question about who pulls the strings. Cecily is rich, successful, and extraordinarily intrusive. In the village we meet all the standard British Village Types--the meddling storekeeper, the meddling neighbors, the lord and lady of the manor. Most important, we meet Clodagh Unwin, their wild daughter, recently returned home and looking for something--maybe just trouble. (Also add in visiting evil brother Anthony Jordan, who is a really bad guy. He does everything villainous but twirl his mustache.)Still, if you can get past, "This is a village. We all know everyone's business," you can enjoy the subtleties of the movie, and the excellent acting. Also, the plot takes some twists and turns for which I wasn't prepared, which certainly makes the film more interesting.The picture really centers around Alice. Sophie Ward is an excellent Alice. In fact, she reminded me of Lewis Caroll's Alice--beset on every side by new and difficult challenges, and slowly becoming tough enough to cope.We saw this movie on a used VHS tape. I don't know if it's available in DVD. It worked very well on the small screen. I wouldn't say "A Village Affair" is a must-see film, but if you can find it, I'd recommend it. It's carrying an abysmal IMDb rating, but it's better than that.P.S. Notice how neatly director Armstrong frames the movie with the first and last scene.P.P.S. Take a careful look at daughter Natasha Jordan. It's a tiny role, but great things happened later to the actor who played it.

I enjoyed this movie very much. Every technical detail, every gesture of every actor, all the lovely sceneries so lush and green and the mounting tension within the storyline. All that professionalism kept me riveted to my seat from beginning to end. It was AFTER the movie was over, when I wiped the abundant tears running fluently down my old cheeks that my thinking mind took over my emotional one and started thinking about the whole thing.************************* SPOILERS AHEAD ******************************The ending is the weakest part of this movie. It really spoils everything done before. Were the producers afraid of the TV audience? Did the sponsor threatened to leave the production if they didn't end it like it did? We'll never know.My feeling was that the lesbian love couldn't possibly end up happily while the poor sucker (read husband) was left behind with his macho ego totally crushed. Impossible. Unpardonable. Unspeakable.Ergo, she resigns her lesbian new love and goes back --happy as the seven dwarfs, singing with her three children in the back of the car "Happy Days Are Here To Stay" or something similar-- to her nice, pure husband that never made her happy (even after three children!!) but that society expected and decided that that was the right thing to do.And it is really surprising and quite a shock that her lesbian lover didn't commit suicide or felt from some deep cliff to her proper destiny (the sponsor missed that one).A really disappointing film, considering that I hold the English cinema as the epitome of excellent movie making. Excellent actors and director, unfortunate script.

This is a review of the film adaption of A Vilage Affair and not the book, which I have not read, but understand is a better product.A Village Afair sat on my TV table over a year before being viewed. It was tough going.Sophie Ward plays bored and frustrated housewife and mother Alice Jordan who moves to a small English village with her husband and three children. This village is the kind of place where everybody inexplicably knows everybody else's business.Alice's dull life is livened by the arrival of Clodagh Unwin, played by Kerry Fox. A free spirited native returning home after a failed love affair in New York. Feigning interest in her husband, Clodagh's real desire is Alice. Friendship turns to love and the two soon become lovers.Near the end I began to understand the core of the writer's intentions. To see it, you have to peel away the story elements like an onion. First, the Villagers. These people act as if it's the mid 60s instead of the 90s. Suspicious for no reason, intolerant, suspecting things with no evidence. Next, the families, including a brother who appears only to expose the lovers with no reason and parents who abandon Clodagh when she needs them most. In fact, if filmed today, the movie would be ridiculed and might be considered offensive because nearly all of the supporting characters are so very intolerant and say so.Anyway, this leaves Clodagh and Alice who really do love each other. Although it's soon apparent, the most passionate feelings belong to Clodagh. Alice realizes she has become the obsession of her lover and worried about losing custody of her children decides to give up her relationship. This brings Clodagh to what amounts to a emotional breakdown. This does not deter Alice, who in the end,leaves the village and her lover.To me, Alice has left behind a broken woman and sold out her own feelings. Clodagh had been in a bad relationship overseas. One can only wonder how she acted during and after the breakup. Leaving the final question. Did Alice escape a life she found suffocating and or a obsessive relationship or did she turn her back on the love of her life.Perhaps the answer is in the book. It's sure not on screen. 4/10

I too love this movie. But after reading the book I see how this movie could have been so much better. If you can get the book and read it. It is excellent. You get more background of the characters. The book is written by Joanna Trollope. She is an English writer.