This is a gentle adaptation of one of Thomas Hardy's classic novels. The script is very well done by Ashley Pharoah, who despite his name is not an illiterate Egyptian who can't spell pharaoh properly, but a Somerset person, steeped in Hardy's country and perhaps cider as well, who knows. Keeley Hawes plays the young schoolteacher and organist named Fancy Day who gets all the local men excited by coming to town and casting her spell over them without even meaning to. There is nothing like one of those demure beauties to get Hardyesque men's hearts a flutterin'. A lot of the film was shot in Hertfordshire, which is shocking, considering how much there is of the West Country crying out for more Hardy adaptations to be made where they were meant to be. But as the Americans (WGBH) were involved as co-producers, they must have insisted on a budget which could not stretch as far as Wessex, not appreciating from their foreign perch the difference between the real thing and a substitute. Nick Laughland, primarily know as a television drama director, has done an excellent job of telling this story simply and with charm. The story also features the replacement of the church gallery orchestra with a harmonium, a theme stressed by Thomas Hardy more than once in his writings. It obviously greatly grieved Hardy that the charming old style of music in the country churches with violins and bass fiddle was suddenly eradicated by the rude intrusion of a device known as a harmonium, which is a kind of portable organ. This was one of the examples of heedless 'progress' wiping out centuries of the real thing and replacing it with something deeply inferior and humdrum. But as we are always being told by the politicians and business magnates that progress always equals improvement, who are we mere ordinary creeping creatures that we are to doubt such wisdom from on high and give way to cynicism? The portrayal of the little church orchestra here is a moving illustration of what was lost in transition. And as for the love story, well, that holds us in suspense till the end. Upon whom will Keeley Hawes bestow her heart? Will she marry for money and social position and wed the local squire? Will she wed the vicar and travel to Venice, which she has always longed to see? Or will she choose the earnest local boy who adores her? Three marriage proposals are made, but only one can succeed. Will she choose aright?
