Wolfi-10 Uncle Vanja in the Australian outback with a perfect rendering of the characters; engrossing, entertaining, and the sad ending as well. I voted it a "10". It looks like Hollywood could learn a lot from Australia.

jandesimpson The first thing to do if one is to derive any pleasure from "Country "Life" is to forget Chekhov. Admittedly the film carries a disclaimer insofar as it is only "Suggested by Uncle Vanya", but having said this it is even more remote from Chekhov that Nikita Mikhalkov's "Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano" which carries a similar disclaimer "Themes from the works of...". This aside, "Country Life" is an agreeable piece of period soap set just after the end of the First World War with pretty visuals of New South Wales's Hunter Valley. Like "Uncle Vanya" it tells of the disruptive visit of a pretentious elderly professor-type and his attractive young second wife to the relatives of his deceased first wife living in a rundown country estate. There all resemblance ceases. Chekhov had a genius for taking a group of characters and exploring each one with equal depth so that even the eponymous Uncle Vanya is but one of several equally fascinating characters. In "Country Life" the focus of attention is placed on the elderly pedant, not unsurprisingly played by the director himself, Michael Blakemore. Would it be cynical therefore to suggest that the film becomes something of an ego trip! The rest, even the Uncle Vanya figure, are curiously colourless by comparison except for that 1940's glamour girl, Googie Withers, still going strong one is glad to see, who turns up as an elderly, domineering and tetchy family cook and almost steals the show. I cannot quite see why the film was made but at least it is harmlessly entertaining. For the real thing I went back to Stuart Burge's filmed adaptation of the Laurence Olivier 1963 Chichester Festival production of Vanya: sans very much in the way of scenery, sans music, apart from a bit of on-stage guitar stuff, monochrome and sans very much in the way of interesting camerawork and visuals, but with Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Joan Plowright, Rosemary Harris, Max Adrian, Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson, a cast to dream of in as powerful a piece of filmed theatre as one is likely to find anywhere.

sscruggs I saw this movie for the first time a year ago, and couldn't wait for its video release. It's a wonderful farce, a bit like "The Man Who Came to Dinner." I thoroughly enjoyed John Hargreave's "Uncle Jack" and Kerry Fox's "Sally". If this were a television program it would have me hooked! All of the characters at the Canterbury estate were given good development (even the minor ones), and I was sorry to have to leave them when the movie ended. My only complaint is that Michael Blakemore's "Alexander" and Greta Scacchi's "Deborah" did not seem to learn anything from their experiences with their relatives. They returned to their selfish, bombastic selves at the end, which made the point of the story a bit fuzzy for me. Overall, however, I would recommend this as a very good picture.

webwaltz i think that chekhov has been treated badly in many theatrical productions of this play, but this film and the welsh 'uncle vanya,' AUGUST, [with anthony hopkins] are beautiful and heartfelt versions of the story...those who think this is a "disappointing" film are not getting the point...the story is, in fact, about people who are very disappointed in life and love...get it???...chekhov takes a certain patience and maturity to understand...i'm happy that both these films and VANYA ON 42ND STREET were made...chekhov's characters are deep and tragic, but also shallow and comic...just like the rest of us, eh???...give it a looksee...and a chance...