Best movie of this year hands down!

Perfect cast and a good story

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

How can you take an eccentric literary masterpiece, a deceptively casual work of brilliance and manifest it for the screen? Not like this, that's for sure. This three-hour yawn is a hopeless attempt to skim through two books, taking much of it literally from the page and condensing the rest very badly. As usual, the television establishment decide to invest in a classic British period drama adaptation with a painting by numbers approach. All the right locations, props and costumes, but no imagination. This is one classic that needed a mammoth feat of creative interpretation to work. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. It's just like British cooking, chuck all the correct ingredients in but don't bother to make it taste of anything. They missed the point entirely. Love in a Cold Climate is about Love. Do we understand why each character loves Linda most of all, with her sweet, sweet nature, her unselfconscious extremes of passions, her infinite compassion for animals, her devotion to love above all else? Are we terrified by Uncle Matthews blue flashing rages? Seduced by Sauveterre's immense, sexy charm? No, no, no. None of the characters are well portrayed, despite a largely excellent cast (particularly Bates, Imrie, Gish, Andrews and Pike). In fact it was only saved by a handful of good, experienced performances in spite of the abysmal direction. The rest were unguided and out of their depth. Despite its condensed nature, the whole thing plods along desperately slowly, and yet gives no substance to anything. It just ticks the necessary boxes, stolidly covering this important plot point, clumsily marking that amusing event from the book. How could they have made everything so boring and dull? Funnily enough, this was the one thing they were supposed to do with Tony Kroesig - of course he seemed rather baby faced and charming. It all comes across like a school play, distinctly amateur, strictly one for our Anglophile cousins.

From the excellent period costumes and detail (the 1930's) to the luxurious, well-appointed sets, to the vibrant colors (check out the red lipstick), "Love In A Cold Climate" can stand next to "Imitation of Life," "All That Heaven Allows," "Written on the Wind," and other Technicolor Sirk hits.Each of the three women who are the focus of the film has traits that viewers can identify with as they follow the girls' pursuit of love.Fanny Logan is the quiet, sensible, conservative woman who marries a college professor and lives a routine but satisfying life. Haven't we all had moments of longing for that sort of secure life? Linda Radlett, Fanny's cousin, has the romantic life we've all fantasized about. First, she marries Tony Kroesig, wealthy son of a banker, who appears fun loving but turns stuffy after marriage. Linda divorces Tony to marry Christian Talbert, a handsome young Communist who takes her off to help refugees in the Spanish Civil War. When Christian finds in Lavender Davies a woman who shares his radical sympathies more sincerely than does Linda, she is off to London. But when Linda misses her train in Paris and doesn't have any money to purchase another fare, she meets Fabrice, a wealthy, handsome nobleman, and becomes his mistress, set up in a beautiful apartment with plenty of money to buy frocks at the best Paris shops.And then there are those times when one behaves perversely, stubbornly, spitefully. And Polly Hampton, the third protagonist, will provide us a source to identify in those moments. Polly is stubbornly defiant of her mother's attempts to marry her off, until Boy Dougdale becomes available--after the death of his wife, Polly's aunt. Polly marries Boy to spite her mother, since Boy is rumored to be her mother's lover.But when Boy eventually becomes involved with Cedric Hampton, a flamboyant gay from Nova Scotia (don't ask), Polly is able to go off with a more acceptable man (fleeing in a flashy, low-slung sport car) who will provide her a better future.In addition to gay Cedric and bisexual Boy, there is the eccentric Lord Merlin, who may well be gay--or just asexual. This eccentric old guy observes the doings of the women, makes apt observations, and gives good advice, all of which is ignored, of course.Lest you think this pursuit of love is all serious business, I will tell you that there is plenty of laughing-out-loud humor here as well--exactly the sort that would have pleased the Ross Hunter who made the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies.The three leading ladies are perfectly cast but so are the supporting players, who often (unintentionally) upstage the protagonists. And the boyfriends are all handsome fellows. Yummy.There is only one thing to do: Make a pot of tea, place some fine cookies on a nice plate or open that box of chocolates, and sink into a soft sofa. Then watch "Love In A Cold Climate" and enjoy two and a half hours of fine entertainment--one of the best women's pictures ever.

Having read both of the books that this mini series is based on and recalling the excellent 1980 mini series, I looked forward to this new version with enthusiasm.I have to say that on the whole I found it very disappointing. It certainly covered the bones of the story, but due to its short length, missed out on much of the humour in the original stories. It certainly looked good, casting was excellent, the period was conveyed very convincingly - but, because virtually none of the characters were properly introduced, I kept wondering "just who is this person". Anyone unfamiliar with the story would have found it confusing most of the time.This was obviously not a cheap production, what a pity they didn't spend a bit more and do better justice to one of the classics of twentieth century fiction.

Nancy Mitford's two delightful novels, 'The Pursuit of Love' and 'Love in a Cold Climate' were beautifully if rather slowly realised in 6 x 50 minutes episodes by Thames Television 20 years ago in a production so vivid that much from it still lingers in my memory. Much funnier and much less pretentious than 'Brideshead Revisited' it no doubt did for respect of the aristocracy what Jack the Ripper did for blind dates, but it was a great romp nonetheless.This time round the BBC has covered the same ground in 150 minutes. It is another beautiful production but I was left with the distinct feeling the fast forward button was on. The novelist Deborah Moggach was responsible for the script. Some things still come across well - Linda's relationship with her French lover Fabrice is well portrayed and the return of the Bolter for instance is a highlight, but the Cedric character and his relationship with the Montdores is truncated and that classic neurasthenic Davey Warbeck so sympathetically played by Michael Williams in the 1980 version has disappeared altogether. John Woods's Merlin is very good though and Anthony Andrews (who starred as the doomed Sebastian in 'Brideshead') is excellent as the feckless bounder Boy Dugdale. Alan Bates as Uncle Matt is rather more menacing than Michael Aldridge's delightfully dotty 1980 version (I guess we can't have our fascists too lovable anymore) and some of the comedy is lost thereby. Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh is lovely as the love-struck Linda but Megan Dodds as Polly is strangely hollow.The stately homes are well cast as usual – the Mitfords may have been aristocratic backwoodspersons, but they lived in a very nice part of Oxfordshire and location shooting is used to good effect. However, it seems that current TV production costs mean that a novel adapted for TV can never be more than severely edited highlights (no-one would do 'Brideshead' in 13 x 50 minute episodes today). This being the case, there's only one thing for it – read the book!