Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain struggles to survive in a decaying English castle in 1930s where she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love.
The filmmakers can't seem to unearth the novel's inherent lightheartedness and instead treat too many events with earnest seriousness, trampling the original story's lively spirit in heavy-handed drama.
Dollops on the usual romantic, family and class conflicts with a very heavy ladle, which pretty much smothers the whimsical mood Fywell strains so hard to attain.
The fancy-pants accents and period costuming make one feel intellectually smug, as if the afternoon had been spent watching a Merchant-Ivory film - only without the tedium of actually sitting through a Merchant-Ivory film.
