Ein traumhaftes Missverständnis

This is a very funny romantic comedy which works because Jenny Seagrove musters her whimsicality and shows that she is an excellent comedienne with perfect comic timing. She plays a widow whose husband has died 18 months earlier unexpectedly of a heart attack, leaving her and her children bereft and bewildered. She is a very attractive woman, and her lecherous dentist, played by Charles Dance, has designs upon her. Instead of injections, he uses hypnosis on his dental patients. In Seagrove's case, he goes beyond dentistry and while she is 'under' he makes increasingly naughty suggestions to her to assist him in his dastardly plans to seduce her and marry her. Anyone who does not believe that things like this can happen has only to read the book OPEN TO SUGGESTION, where many cases of such abuses are described. But back to the film. This hypnotic manipulation has some comic moments. At one point, while Seagrove is in the dental chair in a state of trance and Dance is called out suddenly, leaving the radio on, she accepts hypnotic instructions from a radio announcer, with comic consequences. Seagrove has mastered a wonderfully 'dipsy' expression which makes her hypnotically motivated adventures come across as hilarious. The man who is in love with her is played by an American actor named Anthony Edwards, who had just appeared in a successful American comedy called PLAYING BY HEART (1998). This light and enjoyable confection was directed by Willi Patterson, a TV drama director who had directed Charles Dance 11 years earlier in a TV movie spy drama, OUT OF THE SHADOWS (1988). For some reason, Patterson ceased being a director after this film and since 1999 has done nothing else in the film or TV business which is recorded on IMDb. He had a light touch which was very suited to gentle comedy, and this film works very well.

This is a slushie, a moving Mills & Boone. You could just as easily call it moving wallpaper. It passes a couple of hours and it doesn't offend anyone. Jenny Seagrove acts woodenly, a Lada of femmes-fatales, while Anthony Edwards strolls through the film in an apologetic decaffeinated sort of a way, looking out-of-synch with his English surroundings and upper middle class hinglish. He delivers such an uncommanding screen presence in this big-screen film that I question his wisdom in giving up his day job on Channel 4's "ER".

"Us Begins with You" is the American title. Quite clever, eh? For a moment or so. The British title is better. But it too means nothing, and tells you even less about the film. So what's it all about? Jenny Seagrove is a widow running her husband's gardening business. She's happy with her widowhood, keeps busy with the family gardening business and isn't looking for a replacement hubby. Young son is unhappy, misses dad, is under-achieving at boarding school. Jenny's friends are trying to fix her up with a fella in the shape of Charles Dance, a dentist. He does the dirty by hypnotising her in his dentists chair, aiming to make her receptive to his charms. Coincidence, and film scrptwriters, get in the way of his evil plans. Up turns Anthony Edwards, sports psychologist, who has just lost his job training Linford Christie. Honest! Can it get any worse? You betcha.

The film lasts just under two hours. Surprisingly, I wasn't bored by it. There are a few funny moments and some effective one-liners. Linda Bellingham is as delicious as ever and, along with Tom Conti, steals scenes and demonstrates to the others how it can be done. I was all the while bemused that so much effort could go into making a film that has so little impact and one which will leave no ripples in that sea of celluloid that flows our way from the distributors. No Oscars here. The ladies in the audience loved it and giggled at the naughty bits such as when the backdrop to a conversation was a diagram of female reproductive organs. Such subtlety. And these same women obligingly shed a tear in auto-response to the director's synthetic massaging of the audience's emotions. I cried too but for a different reason. Four out of ten.

C U James

Compared with the atrocious Love Actually, this is not bad. For a change, the film focuses on the nouveau riche rather than pompous middle-class people who plaque such films as Love Actually and Notting Hill. Jenny Seagrove's character epitomises this nouveau riche world, alongside Charles Dances's pony-tailed dentist. It's the first time I have seen Charles Dance not play a upper-crust toff and it was quite a shock. Anthonhy Edwards plays the requisite American in London and it was fairly obvious what the outcome of the film would be early on. There are a few funny lines of dialogue and some scenes are quite touching. Jenny Seagrove does a good job but isn't stretched by the limitations of the script. Charles Dance is underused but manages to steal some scenes from the rather bland character Anthony Edwards plays. Not bad for a British romcom.

A really well made British film with a thoughtful storyline,and a fine cast. Good to see that fine actress Jenny Seagrove in a role well suited to her and played to perfection........wish she were my mum, but I'm too old. One of those rare movies of today that end making the viewer feel inspired and genuinely happy.

What a dire film this is. Just terrible. Its a typicaly modern British film with terrible photography, lame use of music and zero charm.

What was Anthony Edwards and Linford Cjristie thinking. Please don't ever, ever, ever do anything like this again. 2 out of ten tops.