Tim Fywell's 'I Capture the Castle', based on the novel by Dodie Smith (best known for '101 Dalmations'), tells the story of seventeen-year old Cassandra and her eccentric family, living in poverty in a run-down Sussex castle in the 1930s. Cassandra's father James (Bill Nighy) is a quietly enraged man in denial about his twelve-year long writer's block, her stepmother ('not wicked') Topaz (Tara Fitzgerald) is a frustrated bohemian naturist, and her beautiful sister Rose (Rose Byrne) is willing to do anything to escape their hopeless penury. All are desperately unhappy, until wealthy young American brothers Simon and Neil Cotton ride into their lives bringing the promise of change.

'I Capture the Castle' is a classic coming-of-age tale, in which Cassandra, on the brink of adulthood, learns about love and betrayal; and because it takes the form of Cassandra's diaries, reflecting her day-by-day perspective on the events that befall her colourful family, it is a surprisingly devious narrative, where often much more is happening in the background than young Cassandra herself remarks or understands. 'I don't think I'm sophisticated enough for this' says Cassandra at one point in this most sophisticated of films, and the distorting lens of her adolescence may well initially leave viewers as uncomprehending of the truth as Cassandra herself is - all of which adds to the film's ironic entertainment.

While 'I Capture the Castle' is in the end that staple of the English film industry, a period piece, it nonetheless distinguishes itself both by its witty script, suffused with surreal details, and by its outstanding cast, especially Romola Garai as Cassandra, around whose character everything else revolves. And Henry Thomas, who plays Simon Cotton, is indeed THE Henry Thomas, famous for playing Elliot in 'E.T.', but here having to cope with the alien ways of his new English neighbours.

Charming.

Anton Bitel, 6.5.3