It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I've always believed that every movie is allowed One Big Coincidence, and the bigger it is, the earlier in the picture it should be sprung. This is known (don't ask me why) as the "Of all the gin joints in all the world" rule. This example of lesser Coward has a HUGE coincidence which if the above rule were followed would have to have been sprung on the audience at least a week before the movie began. The irony is, the coincidence isn't even particularly germane to the main story and the movie could've gotten along without it. And should've. Said main story involves the clash of solid traditional veddy-upper-clahss English values with more casual boorish Yankee lack-of-values, brought about when the Lord of Marshwood (named Nigel and well named) brings his American bride-to-be, a big movie star, home to meet his mum, a proper but likable paragon of British nobility (Julie Andrews of course). The HUGE coincidence manifests when Lady Marshwood's maid and boon companion confesses that the big American movie star is her sister whom she hasn't seen in 20 years! The story never really recovers from this astonishment because nothing more is made of this beyond some awkward comedy (the movie star doesn't recognize her sister) and once the maid reveals her true identity to the star, the whole thing is shuffled aside and the movie becomes another of the kind of class comedy the Brits love so much. You get the feeling Coward threw it in just to liven things up because he couldn't think of anything else--it comes from deep in left field (or over the wider field boundary, this being England) and pretty much stays there. The sisterly relationship is never resolved (the star makes a totally unbelievable former Brit) and once everyone's had a night's sleep cooler heads prevail and the engagement hassle comes to its foreordained conclusion. Fortunately there are xlnt performances to help us through this, particularly Colin Firth as the Coward stand-in (dry wry and quite a guy) and Stephen Fry as the very model of a modern English butler, dealing out wisdom and consolation as needed. And Julie is magnificent--impossible to believe she was 65 when she made this, especially in the green off-the-shoulder leather evening gown she wears in the opening sequence. You'd never have caught Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp in something like that.

This has to be one of the very worst films I've seen. Admittedly, getting free on the front of a magazine didn't bode well, but this was beyond all expectation, it was truly awful.Not in the least bit funny, just plain boring, my family and I endured this travesty of a film in the hope that it might get a bit better. Even the high profile cast (Julie Andrews, Colin Firth and Stephen Fry) failed to redeem.Most of the film time was spent discussing with my Dad the fact that it was filmed near my cousin's house, a conversation a whole lot more enthralling than the dragged out dialogue dirtying my television set.This truly is an awful film.

This is based on a Noel Coward play, so you should know what to expect.It is very nicely done - the locations look great (Isle of Man standing in for Kent), the cars and clothes are fabulous, and the casting is excellent. Stephen Fry plays a butler (again) with some Jeevesian touches, but is pretty low-key. Colin Firth plays against type in the role Coward so obviously designed for himself - and is funny (again, not something one expects from Firth). Jeanne Tripplehorn looks suitably glamorous as the Hollywood star, and Baldwin This does make a few digs at class and snobbery, but it is really a bit of fluffy comedy to pass a pleasant hour.

This was a pretty darn good movie, and I always enjoy seeing Julie Andrews do comedy. But for me, the highlight of the movie was the dinner scene, with "Moxy" (Sophie Thompson) furiously biting her tongue while her clueless real-life sister (Jeanne Trippelhorn) concocts falsely slanderous stories about their mother, painting her as a bawdy alcoholic. Moxy's outraged cry of "Jugs of Beer!?" after Miranda/Freda leaves is priceless, as is her dressing down of Freda near the end of the film.I liked this film, too, because it didn't sink too far into the "Silly Ass/Bright Young Thing" mode that most of Coward's works tend to. Rent it if you can. It's worth catching.