Seasonal slush fest (From Western Telegraph)

Seasonal slush fest

Hope Springs Director: Mark Herman Starring: Colin Firth, Minnie Driver, Heather Graham, Oliver Platt, Mary Steenburgen. (12A, 92 mins)

A little lull this week, after the X-Men explosion, as Matrix 2 hovers at its starting line ready to be Reloaded on May 23rd. This is merely the countdown to what I think will be the biggest film of the summer.

Before then there's just time for some more romantic comedy and this time it's an offering from home shores, although it happens to be set in the USA.

Hope Springs is an adaptation of a novel by Charles Webb called New Cardiff. Apparently, the novelist Nick Hornby, who was asked to review the novel, recommended it to a friend of his called Colin Firth. He liked it so much, was so sure that he'd like to play the lead if it were made into a film, that he determined to find out who owned the film-rights to it.

Adapted and directed by Mark Herman, Hope Springs is set in a sleepy little Vermont town that gives the film its title. Colin Firth plays Colin (which is easy on the brain), a British artist who escapes to the tranquillity of Hope in order to soothe his broken heart. He is under the impression that his fiance, played by Minnie Driver, has ditched him.

In Hope he finds the perfect cure - Heather Graham, who plays local nurse, Mandy. She is saccharine sweet and does her best to woo the grumpy old Firth. Just as these two love birds are cooing to the same tune the ex-fiance turns up and is determined to get her Englishman back by hook or by crook

The film starts out well enough with some amusing little gags helped on by the beauty of the setting, Firth's well-worn go at being sour, and by brilliant supporting performances from Oliver Platt and Mary Steenburgen. But things soon disintegrate, becoming just a lot of slush. So when Driver turns up with some pith and acid wit it's not a moment too soon. The thing is that the idea that Firth would have been engaged to such a materialistic scheming witch is just too unbelievable to save this lazy film.

If this is all there is then Britain won't get a Brit-Pack Rom-Com international hit this year.

I Capture The Castle is a tale about first love for two young ladies who live with their impoverished novelist father in a tumble down country house. The two girls are swept off their feet by two rich young Americans who turn up as the girl's father's new sympathetic landlords. Haven't seen it but I think it's interesting for two reasons. Firstly interesting to me because I auditioned for, but failed to get, one of the lead roles. And secondly to all other readers of the Western Telegraph because I think some of it was shot in Pembrokeshire. I'm off to the Caribbean for a week to sulk.