I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

"I love and only love the fairer sex, and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs." - Anne Lister, Journals, Oct 29, 1820The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (2010) (TV) was written by Jane English and directed by James Kent. This film is a biography, because Anne Lister [1791 - 1840] was, indeed, a historical figure who managed to live her life as a happy and fulfilled lesbian. Moreover, Ms. Lister did keep voluminous diaries. Only a small portion of the diaries were actual secret--i.e. written in code. Anne Lister was so intelligent that the code she devised wasn't deciphered for almost 100 years. The encoded part of the diary described Anne Lister's romantic and sexual experiences.By a combination of enormous intelligence, class privilege, and unbreakable will, Anne Lister was able to maintain a lesbian life style in a society where such behavior was rarely tolerated.This is an excellent film, with strong performances from all the actors, and an absolutely stellar performance from Maxine Peake as Anne. Because it's a BBC production, the production values are high and the costumes and location shots are entrancing. Obviously, this movie was made for TV, so it will work well on the small screen. However, it is really glorious on the large screen, which is how we saw it. The film was shown at the Dryden Theatre, as the closing night offering of the terrific ImageOut: Rochester Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Don't miss this movie!

Melodramatic, heteroed-down version of the life of a predatory, hairy, self-assured, male- identified 19th century woman of means. I knew nothing of Anne Lister's life, but found this movie patronising from the word go. Watching the nervous though more honest documentary included on the BBC DVD afterwards, confirmed why. The film portrays Lister as a femme, melodramatic woman whose only quirk is to wear black and no makeup. The sex scenes are unconvincing, and great liberty is taken to no doubt make the main character a bit more palatable for mainstream audiences. In the documentary it emerges that Lister was rather arrogant, very butch, shrewd in love and business, and also sported a grey stubble. The film fails to examine what it really must've been like for a lesbian in Lister's position ~ instead we are treated to a flaky tragic love story which might titillate hetero men and women. It feels like the film says 'lesbians are people too, and look they are all hairless and have heteronormative female traits such as big dresses, high-heel shoes and emotional theatrics". What a pity ~ let's hope someone will at some point make a serious film about this fascinating character!

This true story had me glued. To see how the women in Austen's time could pursue gay relationships and benefit financially just blew me away. Miss Anne Lister would be considered a 'groomer' in modern society. But the fact she did what she did back in the early 19th century is a gutsy delight. With the luxury of being rich she was able to move within society with a liberty untethered by convention. It just shows how financial independence for women is the true liberation from the tyranny of conventional society. Big high five to women doing it for themselves!

This superb film for TV deserves the widest possible audience: it tells a gripping and true human story that surprises all those like me who thought they know the era of Jane Austen. Maxine Peake acts out of her skin as Anne Lister, the lesbian diarist whose story remained hidden form the wider public until Helen Whitbread's groundbreaking 1992 book. The film is excellent on many levels: for its up-close portrayal of the emotional and sexual lives of (lesbian) women in an era when the concept of such love (and lust) was more or less unknown; for its sure-footed cinematography that creates a just-familiar-enough epoch; and for its wonderful script by Jane English. Apparently it took 18 days to make - unbelievable. Probably the best value drama for the licence money that BBC has ever achieved. Well done to whoever commissioned this. My favourite thing: the great way interior light and 30+something skin tones are worked: women shown as women rather than constructs of the advertising-consumer nexus. My least favourite thing: what happens to Anne's final partner after Anne dies.