SnoopyStyle Tom Crick (Jeremy Irons)'s wife Mary is obsessed with having a baby even thought she's well past her time. He's a history teacher struggling with know-it-all student Matthew Price (Ethan Hawke) and a restless class. He recounts his youth in the Fens in England to his class enticing them with a tale of murder. The younger versions are played by Grant Warnock and Lena Headey.The modern day story is highlighted by the push and pull of Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke with Cara Buono as the teacher's pet. Director Stephen Gyllenhaal uses locations as a way of bringing the class into his story. The modern class interacts with the old stories like they are actually inside the stories.The big discovery is Lena Headey. It's her first big film and she crushes it. She and Grant Warnock have good chemistry as young lovers. The movie is generally dreary. It's tone dark. The old story has a sense of foreboding. Mary's madness is foreshadowing something sinister in their past.The pace is slow and takes a little too much pleasure in withholding its secret. It needs to be more interesting especially in the middle. It meanders as Hawke and Irons walks down memory lane. It isn't the most exciting thing to watch them talk about the past. A more straight forward return to the old story is probably better. Once it goes back to Headey and Warnock, the movie moves along fine. Every time it goes back to Hawke and Irons, the movie slows down because the present storyline isn't the compelling part.

Prof_Lostiswitz The real reason to see this movie is for its portrayal of the fens, a pert of the world we don't often see. The atmosphere of muck and ooze contributes greatly to the story, and sexual imagery involving eels reminds me of The Tin Drum. The sombre, empty horizons reflect the state of mind the characters are in.That being said, I still think the story is pure soap opera. I can appreciate a good melodrama, but this didn't offer anything out of the ordinary. That being said, I still think the story is pure soap opera. I can appreciate a good melodrama, but this didn't offer anything out of the ordinary.So I recommend the movie, but it is far from being a masterpiece.

George-441 This film is a complex intricate look at sexuality, history, Freud, and superstition all based in the living metaphor of England's fen land, or marshes. It is no coincidence Swift chose to set this incredible story about navigating the labyrinths of jealousy and history- personal and local, using a landscape riddled with secret channels and muddy hidden waters.The acting is superb, and like Ian McEwan's Atonement, looks unflinchingly at the depths of personal tragedy, and history, and their long lasting effects on us as humans, all in the context of historical events.The Fenland is an area deeply steeped in history, going back before the Romans.The film touches literally the taboo of early sexual longing ( male and female)and leaves us to look at the costs of opening Pandora's's box.Swift is a gifted and beautiful writer and I have read this book several times. The film is a credit to the book, which is an unusual statement for films. The film complements the book much in the same way the film of Unbearable Lightness of Being complemented that book.This is a masterful work.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa It was my favorite, but long since, I don't have any, I mainly divide movies into horrible, bad, mediocre, bad, ok, good, excelent. So, this would be excelent. Everything in this movie works extremely well, the acting of Jeremy Irons is, well, as always wonderfull. Reminds me, I don't know why, but, of Stealing Beauty, which Jeremy Irons is also in. To finish, very good, if you haven't seen it, go out and rent it now.