The Land Girls (1998)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It is based on the book but has been improved by the deletion of several chapters and minor characters. The best scenes and dialogue have come from the screen-play writers too.In 1941 the British government set up the Women's Land Army to encourage women to work in the factories and farms so as to release men to join the armed services. So Stella (Catherine McCormack), Prue (Anna Friel) and Ag (Rachel Weisz) come to the farm of John and Faith Lawrence in Dorset. All three get involved with Joe, the handsome son of the Lawrences. The sex scenes are ridiculous, but also hilarious and thankfully, much fewer and briefer than those in the book.There are several really good scenes showing the relationship between the girls and between them and the farmers. In one, Stella asks for some time off to see her fiancé, "No", growls the farmer, "there's too much work to be done". Stella doesn't say anything, the look says it all... disappointment. Then, when Stella starts the tractor up and begins to plough the special paddock, we see the farmer striding towards her, she looks so worried. "He's going to shout at me... send me home...". But no, he muses about his beloved paddock then "You'd better finish it, you're doing a good job". Another is when Stella sees her badly injured fiancé and then has to decide whether to go back to the farm, we can see her thinking... "He needs me... I have to stay by him".Friel is sparkling mostly, but gets the really sad scene when told her new husband has been killed, and Weisz gets a great line when she meets Desmond just as he has to leave... "We've only just met, you couldn't possibly ask me to wait for you". He does, and she does. How sweet.Near the beginning, the very old farmhand (in the actor's one and only film) "The dark one takes my fancy, she reminds me of a girl I met in 1899"!!! The final scene, in the orchard at a post-war reunion with Stella and Joe, is so poignant as they reflect on what might have been. "I waited for that train for a week... I'm still waiting", says Joe. Their hands touch for a second, then they walk away.I rate it a 10 because I can follow the story easily, I can recognise all the characters without wondering who they are or what they are doing, the acting is faultless from all the cast, and there are the good scenes with excellent dialogue.One tiny fault, the girls arrive with suitcases that wouldn't hold a quarter of the clothes they subsequently wear!

When the men went off to fight the Second World war, the world of work was transformed by the influx of women - a phenomenon little explored in film. The implications for factory work was examined in the 1980 American documentary "The Life And Times Of Rosie The Riveter", while this 1998 British film - directed and co-written by David Leland - provides a fictional look at the role of the Women's Land Army through the experiences of three attractive city girls: working class hairdresser Prue (Anna Friel), middle class graduate Ag (Rachel Weisz), and quiet Stella (Catherine McCormack). The man in the middle of all the fields and the fornication is farmer's son Joe (Steven Mackintosh).Like another movie set on the land in wartime - "Another Time, Another Place" (1983) - this is based on a novel by a female author, in this case Angela Huth. She has created three wonderful roles for young British actresses and David Leland has brought the book to life with a marvellous evocation of the period and an accomplished combination of humour and pathos.

This somewhat tepid and quiet film follows three women from three different places, both socially and geographically, to a Dorset farm to work while the men who tend it go to fight in WWII. They gain each other's trust and experience the joy and pains of love.McCormack (Braveheart) and Weisz (The Mummy) do well, but they both are wasted on a film only slightly better than dull.

We've seen this kind of story countless times in BBC imports or Danielle Steel novels. There's nothing new about the plot or the characters: saucy working class girl, sensible"head girl" type, and sensitive British lass with eyes for the equally sensitive farmhand. The plot isn't executed in a novel fashion, either, and we can see the rather abrupt ending coming miles away. Still, the leads are quite attractive, with Anna Friel, Catherine McCormack, and Rachel Weisz as the three main land girls of the title and Stephen Mackintosh as the sensitive Dorset lad. Enough so to make it worth a rent on a weekend when all the new releases are checked out!