StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

The_late_Buddy_Ryan Nancy was the first to exploit the glittering vein of inside jokes and family legend that's sustained the Mitford industry for over fifty years, and when her two most popular books, the titular "Cold Climate" and the earlier "Pursuit of Love," were "adapted" (sliced and diced and drastically condensed) to fit this stingy two-episode format, there were bound to be a few loose ends. My brilliant wife, a fiction editor by trade, spotted a brief two-character scene that didn't seem to make much sense; it turned out to be a collage of the zingier lines from three different scenes involving two sets of characters and spread out over twenty pages. Do admit, Fanny! Mitford loyalists will mourn the loss of Uncle Davey; they may also wonder why, say, on the page it's Aunt Sadie who can't talk horticulture with a dinner guest because she prefers to leave such matters to the gardeners whereas on the screen it's daughter Linda who can't identify the soup because she prefers to leave them to the cook…. Still, if the script is a little dodgy, the cast is just about perfect—Alan Bates, as Uncle Matthew, prowls the floor at a deb dance like a rottweiler on parade; Celia Imbrie is delightfully distracted as Aunt Sadie; Elisabeth Dermot Walsh and Rosamund Pike are charming as lovely, clueless Linda and the all-seeing narrator, Fanny. Special mention goes to Jemima Rooper and Anna Popplewell as sex-mad innocents Jassy and Victoria. The earlier, 8-ep version, still available on disc, has more room for plot material (including Uncle Davey), but the younger characters aren't nearly as well cast.

pushkasbreath How can you take an eccentric literary masterpiece, a deceptively casual work of brilliance and manifest it for the screen? Not like this, that's for sure. This three-hour yawn is a hopeless attempt to skim through two books, taking much of it literally from the page and condensing the rest very badly. As usual, the television establishment decide to invest in a classic British period drama adaptation with a painting by numbers approach. All the right locations, props and costumes, but no imagination. This is one classic that needed a mammoth feat of creative interpretation to work. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. It's just like British cooking, chuck all the correct ingredients in but don't bother to make it taste of anything. They missed the point entirely. Love in a Cold Climate is about Love. Do we understand why each character loves Linda most of all, with her sweet, sweet nature, her unselfconscious extremes of passions, her infinite compassion for animals, her devotion to love above all else? Are we terrified by Uncle Matthews blue flashing rages? Seduced by Sauveterre's immense, sexy charm? No, no, no. None of the characters are well portrayed, despite a largely excellent cast (particularly Bates, Imrie, Gish, Andrews and Pike). In fact it was only saved by a handful of good, experienced performances in spite of the abysmal direction. The rest were unguided and out of their depth. Despite its condensed nature, the whole thing plods along desperately slowly, and yet gives no substance to anything. It just ticks the necessary boxes, stolidly covering this important plot point, clumsily marking that amusing event from the book. How could they have made everything so boring and dull? Funnily enough, this was the one thing they were supposed to do with Tony Kroesig - of course he seemed rather baby faced and charming. It all comes across like a school play, distinctly amateur, strictly one for our Anglophile cousins.

Philby-3 Nancy Mitford's two delightful novels, 'The Pursuit of Love' and 'Love in a Cold Climate' were beautifully if rather slowly realised in 6 x 50 minutes episodes by Thames Television 20 years ago in a production so vivid that much from it still lingers in my memory. Much funnier and much less pretentious than 'Brideshead Revisited' it no doubt did for respect of the aristocracy what Jack the Ripper did for blind dates, but it was a great romp nonetheless.This time round the BBC has covered the same ground in 150 minutes. It is another beautiful production but I was left with the distinct feeling the fast forward button was on. The novelist Deborah Moggach was responsible for the script. Some things still come across well - Linda's relationship with her French lover Fabrice is well portrayed and the return of the Bolter for instance is a highlight, but the Cedric character and his relationship with the Montdores is truncated and that classic neurasthenic Davey Warbeck so sympathetically played by Michael Williams in the 1980 version has disappeared altogether. John Woods's Merlin is very good though and Anthony Andrews (who starred as the doomed Sebastian in 'Brideshead') is excellent as the feckless bounder Boy Dugdale. Alan Bates as Uncle Matt is rather more menacing than Michael Aldridge's delightfully dotty 1980 version (I guess we can't have our fascists too lovable anymore) and some of the comedy is lost thereby. Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh is lovely as the love-struck Linda but Megan Dodds as Polly is strangely hollow.The stately homes are well cast as usual – the Mitfords may have been aristocratic backwoodspersons, but they lived in a very nice part of Oxfordshire and location shooting is used to good effect. However, it seems that current TV production costs mean that a novel adapted for TV can never be more than severely edited highlights (no-one would do 'Brideshead' in 13 x 50 minute episodes today). This being the case, there's only one thing for it – read the book!

hexa-2 Nancy Mitfords novel of upper class English life is reconstructed superbly in this new mini series. While the Tory government appeases Adolf Hitler, the idle rich "come out" drink, fornicate and dance. The good news is the officer class of WW2 are supplied by this useless mob, while my rellies were the poor bloody other ranks that died with them. One consolation not as bad as WW1. A great series and compulsive viewing!! Don't miss it!!