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.

Thinking about the book (which admittedly I haven’t read for a while), I think you have to take a fairly adventurous approach to adaptation. It’s not like Austen or Dickens where all the action and dialogue are on the page in fully formed third or first party narrative scenes and all you have to do is dramatise them.

The action is very episodic and related at a distance by Fanny who I love as a character but is very subtle and without a distinctive narrative voice. I don’t see how it would be even possible to adapt it conventionally without huge indigestible wodges of voiceover.

The novel has its place but do we need this ‘women are so naive’ story at the moment? Is it a uk fantasy to better times?

I don't think it ever was saying "women are so naive". It's portraying one set of women who are quite naive by virtue of the fact that they've had no real education and have been so sheltered from society. It's also essentially portraying the reality of the Mitford family. Wasn't it said that when Nancy herself left home she had to come back because she didn't know how to do laundry and had run out of clean clothes? Nancy Mitford acknowledged the family's naivety herself, and I think Linda's eventual fate is an expression of this.

@Janaih

Managed 15 minutes of this shite before switching to Netflix. Eccentric posh wank clearly for the American export market.

I'm now disappointed in Dominic West professionally as well as personally.

Yes indeed

To be fair, it was Diana and Unity who were the fascism fans and Hitler lovers

I think Debo, subsequently the Duchess of Devonshire was also, in her way, but because she was the youngest it was never as obvious. If you read the letters, she was very close to Diana and they had a lot in common. I remember one in particular where she'd visited Jessica in the US, and claimed that her flat smelled because there was a black person living in the flat below.

It is their story - but is it what we need right now?

Agree that it’s made for the export market. Glad some people got jobs out of it (though did so many need to be Emily Mortimers pals?)

That was weird, the hair.

It was okay, but I do have a list of objections, chiefly Linda being dark and Fanny fair. I'm sure Linda is described as having poker straight blonde hair and blue eyes, and Fanny describes her hair as 'heathery'.

Surely Uncle Matthew was also far too young.

And, crucially, not enough Davey.

So was Decca the only really decent human out of the lot, then?

@RickiTarr

So was Decca the only really decent human out of the lot, then?

Quite possibly. It's interesting, because I'm tempted to say 'but what hope did any of then have with tjat upbringing?'. But then Decca had the same upbringing and seemed to turn out okay.

Indeed. I might have to read the collected letters. It’s been on my amazon wish list for years.

I don't think the opening scene helped. You obviously have to have an audience-grabber (nudity! war! pregnant woman gets bombed out of her house! etc) but it threw me. The Linda of the opening scene (WW2) looked the same as the Linda of the let's-go-back-to-the-beginning (post WW1). I had trouble orienting myself in time, despite having read the book (a long time ago, in my defence).
Lily James was too old for her role and Dominic West too young for his. Or, more precisely, too young-looking; older people back then looked old.

It wasn't helped by the fact that I don't like Lily James. She always looks so smug and pleased with herself. That's all I get from her - not her character's emotions but merely that the actress thinks she's the bee's knees.

@RickiTarr

So was Decca the only really decent human out of the lot, then?

She was certainly the best of them, though even she had her blind points. I recommend her book "Hons and Rebels".

I recommend her book "Hons and Rebels".

Now that I have read.

That and the obvious Roman a clefs by Nancy and basic historical overview of the Moseleys and Unity.

It all leaves a slightly uneven impression, I think.

The letters were interesting towards the end when Diana and Debo were the only surviving sisters. By that time they knew the letters would be read and might well be published because quite a lot had been written about the family already, so it became blatantly clear that what they wrote was being massaged a bit for posterity. However, they could never really disguise anything because they had no concept that their views about, for instance, class, politics, education etc - and in particularly the whole saga around Unity, Mosley and Hitler - could conceivably be anything other than correct. I found them both really quite deeply dislikable.

I can't really see a 19 year old playing a 29 year old that convincingly.

So instead we get a well known 29 year old trying very hard to be a breathless, wide eyed teenager. Either option isn't great, let's be honest.

People saying that this production supports the British film industry, yes it does. So how about employing some talented young actors that actually fit the role? It seems like casting Lily James and Dominic West is the only way to get people to watch it.

Can anyone here recommend the book, is it worth trying?

But bemused by this too - Fanny’s hair changed from long and wavy to a short bob with a fringe during the scene at Christchurch. Must have been deliberate but why?

They saw the girls at Oxford skinny dipping with the boys and Linda said, 'go on, it'll look gorgeous' or something. I thought at first she meant them taking their clothes off but she meant them getting their hair cut. They both had it cut (hence one of the next scenes had a gut telling Linda she had hair in her nose) but it was more noticeable on Fanny.

I guess the hair was representative of something else. Having your hair cut short was a big thing in those days (i.e flappers and bright young things, etc). It was sort of symbolic but they didn't really go into much detail about it (that's my interpretation anyway). It just cut from one scene of them at Oxford with long hair and then the next it was bobbed. I mean, how did they get find a hairdressers and get it done so quickly?

Yes, the book is definitely worth reading.

@Zzelda

The letters were interesting towards the end when Diana and Debo were the only surviving sisters. By that time they knew the letters would be read and might well be published because quite a lot had been written about the family already, so it became blatantly clear that what they wrote was being massaged a bit for posterity. However, they could never really disguise anything because they had no concept that their views about, for instance, class, politics, education etc - and in particularly the whole saga around Unity, Mosley and Hitler - could conceivably be anything other than correct. I found them both really quite deeply dislikable.

You sold me. I’ve ordered it. Sounds quite fascinating.

Thank you @AndreaMarteau that makes perfect sense - I hadn’t connected the hair on Linda’s nose.

Aieee!! Here are some facts, people - how dare anyone impugn Nancy.

Nancy fought the Fascists herself, rare in a woman. She worked in horrifying conditions in a camp to save the workers in the Spanish Civil War, unpaid, for months.

Nancy and her bookish mates had been warning the govt for years re the Nazis but the truths they told were so awful no one believed them. Happened all the time in the 30s. Nancy was a Socialist, left wing for life.

Nancy grassed Diana to the govt cos of the Mosley threat. Debo was close to Diana because everyone feared what Diana would do if she and Mosley were left to their own devices. Debo was never remotely even right wing.

As for the others..

Diana had two sets of children: both sets were taken off her by the courts. Once in divorce, once cos she pushed to go to prison cos she wanted to be closer to Mosley. He didn’t love her and was serially unfaithful, even in prison, something of an achievement.

Unity was also a full on fascist and shot herself when war was declared. She lived most of her adult life as an incontinent, aggressive, brain damaged wreck. Almost killed Lady R who had to look after her. Lord R moved out - the strain ended the marriage.

Tom Mitford flirted with fascism, as did a lot of toffs, but became a British officer and the fascists killed him in the last days of ww2.

Pam married several times before becoming a lesbian. One of her husbands was an engineering genius who had flirted with fascism, but like Tom, fought for the Allies until his friends the Nazis killed him.

Jessica - Decca - was a Communist who married twice to Communists. She fought the Nazis in the civil war in
Spain, in ww2 then moved to the US to campaign for civil rights through the 50s and 60s. She was mates with Maya Angelou. Drink got the better of her and she died quite young, the deaths (suicide and bike crash as a small child) of her sons weighing on her.

I wouldn't say being a Communist in the era of Stalin and steadfastly ignoring reports of his mass killings, show trials, gulags etc = being a decent person, but Jessica did leave the party in the end (after the brutal suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, I think). In many other respects, yes, she worked for things most of us in the UK would consider good causes, e.g. civil rights, workers' rights, health and safety improvements, consumer rights (she wrote an excellent expose of the US funeral business). She led by far the most 'normal' life of the whole weird family.

Nancy had a very sharp tongue but I don't know what else she's done to merit being assumed not to be a decent person. She was intensely patriotic, hence her denunciation of the Mosleys, and quite right too. They were despicable. I can't get too worked up about Diana being separated from her very young children at a time when her Nazi chums were planning the Holocaust. She and Mosley married in Berlin at Goebbels' house with Hitler as the guest of honour.

Unity was an obsessive and an oddball, even before she shot herself in the head after the UK declared war on Germany. She survived but had brain damage, and died some years later. Hitler ensured she was sent home to the UK by train where her mother looked after her to the end of her life. Her father left her mother because in a time of war he felt patriotism to the UK overrode his previous favourable view of the Nazis. The mother didn't.

The other siblings held assorted repellent views (snobs, racists, anti-semites, pro-Nazi, in varying degrees) but frankly given their class and upbringing, this is not surprising in the slightest.

I thought I wasted 90 minutes of my life watching Tulip Fever on BBC IPlayer yesterday evening, but at least it seems I could have spent a worse hour. I only wish Marc Bolan was still alive to sue the makers for using his music.

Was really looking forward to this but what a load of rubbish. Rambling thoughts:
I wish Julian Fellowes had done it.
They really overdid Linda - she’s not hysterical.
Uncle Matthew portrayal was just weird - May be there was some odd sexual charge because Lily James and Dominic West seemed to have something going on?
Davey’s portrayal was woeful.
The Merlin mob would have been summarily chucked out of the ball by Uncle Matthew if they’d arrived rigged out as they were. Totally unbelievable.
The Bolter was a travesty.
Tony Kroesig should be florid and Teutonic, not slight and foppish.
The relationship between Linda and Fanny is not a lesbian one fgs.
DH commented that he really couldn’t work out what was going on half the time.

The costumes were overblown and surprisingly unattractive (see previous comment wishing for Julian Fellowes).
DH has refused to watch any more. I am undecided. Thought Fanny was slightly more nuanced and honestly think Alfred Wincham was about the best character in the thing, even though we saw him for about 30 seconds.
The whole thing was just really bitty, no build up of characters, the use of modern music worked in ‘A Knight’s Tale’ but is a bit old hat now.

DayswithaY, I love the books - possibly why I found this adaptation so annoying. They are a window to another age/class.

@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere

Thinking about the book (which admittedly I haven’t read for a while), I think you have to take a fairly adventurous approach to adaptation. It’s not like Austen or Dickens where all the action and dialogue are on the page in fully formed third or first party narrative scenes and all you have to do is dramatise them.

The action is very episodic and related at a distance by Fanny who I love as a character but is very subtle and without a distinctive narrative voice. I don’t see how it would be even possible to adapt it conventionally without huge indigestible wodges of voiceover.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_in_a_Cold_Climate_(2001_TV_series)

This is a much better adaptation IMO.

@dayswithaY

I can't really see a 19 year old playing a 29 year old that convincingly.

So instead we get a well known 29 year old trying very hard to be a breathless, wide eyed teenager. Either option isn't great, let's be honest.

People saying that this production supports the British film industry, yes it does. So how about employing some talented young actors that actually fit the role? It seems like casting Lily James and Dominic West is the only way to get people to watch it.

Can anyone here recommend the book, is it worth trying?

There are three books and I do recommend reading them. The Pursuit of Love Love in a Cold Climate Don't tell Alfred