The Pursuit of Love

[NurseButtercup]

Oh the absolute irony of the words of the character played by Dominic West in this trailer!! Wasn't he start shagging Lily James when he was filming this TV series???

This will be on BBC from 9th May - looks good.

And just realised that Emily Mortimer is playing the Bolter which mean she's given herself the best line in the whole book.

The last one of the book, you mean?
Absolutely.

I didn't really enjoy The Great. I know it was all tongue in cheek, but I just found it a bit OTT.

I think Reprehensibles comments a couple of threads ago summed up the problems between this and the book really well.

I was really looking forward to this but was disappointed last night.

It didn’t help that Linda and Fanny are played by actresses who are far too old. The characters are about 18 in this part of the story but actually are more naieive than an 18 year okd today and could almost be played by a 15-16 year old. My DD and her friends who are this age remind me much more of Linda and Fanny and their discussions, than Lily James who is about 30.

Tony wasn’t right. He is meant to be dull not flamboyant.
There was none of Davey’s hypochondria.
I agree that Linda is not hysterical, just bored and dramatic and easily taken with ideas and people. At this stage if the book it is all about naïveté, with Fanny looking back from a position of knowing more but not saying too much.
Linda is a sad character not a ridiculous one and certainly not someone who sexualises everything, but instead romanticises things in a very simple way.
The catastrophe friends of Merlin would never have been allowed in the house for the Ball if they had looked or behaved as they do in the scene with Andrew Scott.

The only bit I really liked was the end when Linda is at her wedding breakfast and you see the dawning realisation that she doesn’t love Tony after all and he is a terrible bore.

Really did it like reference to masturbation (totally wrong for the book and their awareness..if they did it they wouldn’t know the term for it or laugh about it. Didn’t like the silly driving scenes or the watching people skinny dipping. Tony wasn’t in the Bullingdon...I’m sure he wasn’t a wild type at all.

I think it is a hard one to televise but agree the one from about 18 years ago was better. This one goes for shock value and shows values of today far too much, not what it was like to be an extremely sheltered deb who had romanticised the real world and couldn’t wait to get out.

I think the film version of ‘I capture the castle’ catches the sentiment much better.

Of course it is a satire and in the book there is lots that is silly and funny and also very poignant. If Linda is ridiculous and hysterical, it will be much harder to build the sense of sadness about what happens to her.

It was the ok. Bit too quirky for my liking

I didn't like the momentum they rushed some bits and took ages on other bits

Lily James has been playing 18 year olds for at least a decade surely

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow - spot on re Baz Luhrmann - he led the way in that style of film.

Yes, while I was watching it last night, I said it felt like watching Bz Luhrman’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ or ‘Moulin Rouge’. I think that can work for certain stories being made into films, but not this one. Those Baz Lurhman scenes are always about total decadence....and The Pursuit of Love isn’t about people wanting a wild and decadent life but more about eccentricity and there is a difference.

I am loving it. I think Lily James captures the frustration of adolescence brilliantly - fizzing with longing and mad desire to get out, to go anywhere! Love the costumes too - the droopy cardigans giving way to proper fashion silks. Good stuff.

Been thinking about this a bit more this afternoon and realised the main issue is Linda was an incurable romantic - it was romance she craved, not sex as portrayed here.

@WombatChocolate

I think Reprehensibles comments a couple of threads ago summed up the problems between this and the book really well.

I was really looking forward to this but was disappointed last night.

It didn’t help that Linda and Fanny are played by actresses who are far too old. The characters are about 18 in this part of the story but actually are more naieive than an 18 year okd today and could almost be played by a 15-16 year old. My DD and her friends who are this age remind me much more of Linda and Fanny and their discussions, than Lily James who is about 30.

Tony wasn’t right. He is meant to be dull not flamboyant.
There was none of Davey’s hypochondria.
I agree that Linda is not hysterical, just bored and dramatic and easily taken with ideas and people. At this stage if the book it is all about naïveté, with Fanny looking back from a position of knowing more but not saying too much.
Linda is a sad character not a ridiculous one and certainly not someone who sexualises everything, but instead romanticises things in a very simple way.
The catastrophe friends of Merlin would never have been allowed in the house for the Ball if they had looked or behaved as they do in the scene with Andrew Scott.

The only bit I really liked was the end when Linda is at her wedding breakfast and you see the dawning realisation that she doesn’t love Tony after all and he is a terrible bore.

Really did it like reference to masturbation (totally wrong for the book and their awareness..if they did it they wouldn’t know the term for it or laugh about it. Didn’t like the silly driving scenes or the watching people skinny dipping. Tony wasn’t in the Bullingdon...I’m sure he wasn’t a wild type at all.

I think it is a hard one to televise but agree the one from about 18 years ago was better. This one goes for shock value and shows values of today far too much, not what it was like to be an extremely sheltered deb who had romanticised the real world and couldn’t wait to get out.

I think the film version of ‘I capture the castle’ catches the sentiment much better.

Of course it is a satire and in the book there is lots that is silly and funny and also very poignant. If Linda is ridiculous and hysterical, it will be much harder to build the sense of sadness about what happens to her.

This is pretty much exactly what I thought. Thank you!

I read somewhere that Emily Mortimer put in the masturbation line because she found it in one of Nancy Mitford’s letters, but it is completely wrong for the character here. The whole point of this part of the book, as you say, is that they were clueless.

Yes Reorehensible....that’s exactly what I thought too, a couple of posts up. It is about a young girl wanting romance or what she imagines romance to be, when she has very little to base her ideas in. It isn’t about wanting sex and Linda wouldn’t have known much about sex really.

Linda and Fanny would have been like girls much younger than 18 today. Today 18 year olds might be very aware in a way Linda and Fanny weren’t. I think of some of the more innocent 14 or 15 year olds I know who maybe go to girls’ schools and have read a few books but don’t know much about boys, but have started to be interested in them, but are pretty clueless. That’s what Linda was like...or like the character in I capture the Castle who has big romantic ideas, or perhaps Elinor in Sense and Sensibility......but obviously more silly because it is a comedy.

Lily James plays Linda in a far too knowing way who has enough knowledge and confidence to talk about masturbation and make it a joke, rather than the Linda who probably wouldn’t know that word or if she did wouldn’t want to talk about it with pride.

It’s the trouble with lots of dramas today, that they overly sexualise what was really about romance and can’t see the difference.

Utter rot

Davey's hypochondria is more prominent in 'Love in a Cold Climate'.

@WombatChocolate

Yes Reorehensible....that’s exactly what I thought too, a couple of posts up. It is about a young girl wanting romance or what she imagines romance to be, when she has very little to base her ideas in. It isn’t about wanting sex and Linda wouldn’t have known much about sex really.

Linda and Fanny would have been like girls much younger than 18 today. Today 18 year olds might be very aware in a way Linda and Fanny weren’t. I think of some of the more innocent 14 or 15 year olds I know who maybe go to girls’ schools and have read a few books but don’t know much about boys, but have started to be interested in them, but are pretty clueless. That’s what Linda was like...or like the character in I capture the Castle who has big romantic ideas, or perhaps Elinor in Sense and Sensibility......but obviously more silly because it is a comedy.

Lily James plays Linda in a far too knowing way who has enough knowledge and confidence to talk about masturbation and make it a joke, rather than the Linda who probably wouldn’t know that word or if she did wouldn’t want to talk about it with pride.

It’s the trouble with lots of dramas today, that they overly sexualise what was really about romance and can’t see the difference.

Yes, a real shame

I'm so disappointed it's utterly dreadful. One of my favourite novels of all time. All the humour is lost and Linda is thoroughly dislikable and annoying, even Fanny is a bit of a twit. The 2001 version is wonderful but I now can't find it online to watch, I'm sure it was on Netflix.

I keep thinking of stuff that was intrinsically wrong . Davey wouldn't sleep in the buff, he'd be terrified of getting a chill.

It’s the trouble with lots of dramas today, that they overly sexualise what was really about romance and can’t see the difference.

Yes this is so true

Just realised that Emily Mortimer is the daughter of John Mortimer who wrote A Voyage Round My Father & Rumpole of the Bailey!

Sorry, Reading back through the thread and the point about Davey and Aunt Emily wrapped in passionate sheets already made.

Newnortherner111 I watched Tulip Fever this week too and found it wanting. The settings, costumes, puritan feel was very similar to The Miniaturest which I loved, found extremely atmospheric, but Tulip Fever missed the mark.

For me, the really romantic costume drama is North and South.

I enjoyed it, I don't normally like period dramas so the madness and music made it palatable for me. It seems anyone who's read the book (not me) hated it though.

A pp mentioned it bringing out the Marxist in them, true dat, the 'ruling classes' have always been the same and they're still running the bloody country, just look at the cabinet, not representative of 99% of the country.

Anyway, looking forward to next week, I don't do binge watching.

Where can I watch Tulip Fever @reprehensibleme? Is it on Netflix?

It was on BBC2 - think it's still on iplayer.

Debo was never remotely even right wing.

I think it's pretty clear that she was. I know she joined the Social Democrats, but that was essentially because her husband did. Her attitudes as demonstrated both in her correspondence and her books are very clearly right wing, and she had a lot in common with Diana. I quote above her comment that Decca's flat smelt because a black person lived in the one underneath, and that was quite symptomatic of her attitudes.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this but I was intrigued by the radio trailer and I can't usually resist a period drama. Having said that, Lily James seems to be in most things these days.

First episode was a bit slow. I am getting into the story after the second episode and as it's only a three parter, so we'll stick it out.

God that was utter crap!

I loved the book and am not anti-Mitford but that was just a pastiche with no depth whatsoever.

Lily James is being cast in things way beyond her reach. Actress of the moment with so little talent and the faux lesbian scenes were clearly just for titillation.

Did she get with Dominic West on this programme or another. So hard to keep up...

Glad to strike this one off the planner.

And to think it was in the Line of Duty slot! Sacrilege! 😀