Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

SnoopyStyle It's 1890s Victorian England. Nancy Astley (Rachael Stirling) works at the family seaside restaurant as an oyster girl. She falls completely upon seeing vaudeville actress Kitty Butler (Keeley Hawes) who dresses as a man on stage. She leaves her boyfriend Freddy (Benedict Cumberbatch) to be with Kitty. The sisterhood turns into a lesbian affair as Nan joins Kitty on stage. Later, Nan catches Kitty in bed with manager Walter Bliss who then get married. Nan starts dressing as a man and working the streets. She's taken with the innocent Florence (Jodhi May). Wealthy widower Diana Lethaby (Anna Chancellor) takes her off the streets to be her lover. Nan gets tired of the life and gets into a fight with Lethaby protecting the maid Zena Blake (Sally Hawkins). Nan gets thrown out onto the streets. She finds a colder Florence with a baby living with her brother Ralph Banner (Hugh Bonneville).The first part sets it up as a lesbian love story. It doesn't follow through on that front. It turns into a melodrama of the Victorian London's lesbian scene. In fact, Kitty gets sidelined for the other two parts. The first part led me down one path and then I got thrown a bit going down the other path. This unusual world is fascinating. Rachael Stirling is quite compelling going from innocent ingénue to rundown weariness. This is an interesting TV mini-series.

mjsnode-1 This was recommended to me by a friend that said it was cute and cuddly for a "lesbian sexuality Flick". Boy was he wrong. I guess he just didn't get it. Growing up not understanding and then discovering yourself thru trial and tribulation is more like it.The characters are full and vibrant and the story has enough fun thrown in thru the theater performances to keep anyone interested.Rachael Stirling as "Nan" goes thru so many tries at finding the love she desires only to find it was the one person she was scared to reveal all too, and ran out on. Johdi May as "Flo" was remarkable. spent a couple hours trying to recall where I've seen her before, only to discover she was The quiet sister "Alice" in "Last of The Mohicans" Luckily,I was raised in a liberal family and had no issues with trying a movie like this. So many people are missing out on flicks like this. I'm glad I took my friend's advise and tried it. But, I'm sure I enjoyed it more the he.

Sherazade A young woman leaves her provincial life for a new one in the city and there she meets another woman with whom she falls in love with. Their relationship turns physical quickly and they both believe that they are soul-mates, until one day, the provincial girl comes home to find a man in their bed. Her lover then reveals to her that their relationship was just an experiment and she really likes men. Um, kinda like the Anne Heche and Ellen Degeneres thing. So, anyway, the provincial girl, broken, torn and shattered by this discovery moves out and begins to discover what the real world is all about as she falls into the hands of all sort of vindictive and salacious people in 19th century England.

David Vanholsbeeck In short, this is one of the worst of the so-called prestigious BBC-series. I'm not a huge fan of the "big gay movie" of these days, Brokeback Mountain (a good movie, but not a masterpiece), but after having seen this series, I must say that that film at least tried to understand the relationship between two people. This series is a mockery of all things lesbian.First of all, the directing is the worst thing about the film. Whatever emotional impact could be expected of this soapy script, director Sax ruined it. This guy seems to think this story needed a Guy Ritchie approach. I mean, come on, we're talking lesbianism at the end of the 19th century here. What's with the endlessly repeated "focus" shots then? Or the short cuts? The fast forward-ism (worked well in Requiem for a Dream, about drugs, here it doesn't make any sense)? And does this guy even know how to get a better performance out of an actor (see below)? Secondly, the acting. I have no major problems with the way everyone acted, save lead Rachael Stirling, who was absolutely not up to this role. But then again, the role itself couldn't really be anyone's cup of tea. With Stirling's over-affected way of acting and misplaced intonations however (not to mention her strange voice), this character was anything but believable, let alone interesting.And in the end, the entire cast was simply defeated by a terrible script and lousy dialogue. I don't know if the book by Sarah Waters is any good, but if it's anything like this piece of bad soap opera, I don't understand why it ever was considered to be essential women's literature, and why it should be turned into a movie. The rags-to-riches, riches-to-rags and rags-to-riches-again story isn't even the main problem. This has been done a thousand times before, and often with much better results. But not a moment did I believe these characters; often I even got embarrassed by the cheesy words they spoke at each other. And do some people still think falling in love is best shown by one person gasping at the other from scratch? And what's with the oysters? Was that supposed to be a lesbian metaphor? And really, couldn't they have come up with a better title? No, I really can't understand why this series is rated above 8 here on the IMDb. This is a downright embarrassment for anyone who 's gay or lesbian. This ain't a film about the Victorian era, this is film making as if it still wás the Victorian era!