Customer Reviews

Saving Grace (El Jardin de la Alegria) [NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America]

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Superb. Grace (Brenda Blethyn) is widowed and instead of finding her comfortable country life insured, discovers she's been left with a huge debt that threatens her ability to retain the family home. Then she finds that her charming gardener has been growing a few marijuana plants on her property, and they're looking a little sickly. He hesitantly comes to her for green thumb advice - and she sees a way out of her debt. The rest? Well, I'm sorry: you'll just have to see the movie. But suffice it to say that you won't regret it. It's a hoot and a half and all's well that end's well. The scene where a group of 'ladies to do tea' get inadvertently stoned when the wrong leaves are used for the afternoon brew - it's worth seeing all by itself. Fun, funny, sweet, and silly - and utterly charming.
Five stars.

I first saw Saving Grace on a Virgin Atlantic flight in July, coming home from Scotland. I never heard of the movie, but was quickly drawn in by the characters setting and plot. When it finally opened in the U.S., I became a one-man PR firm, talking the film up and getting people to go see it. Brenda Blethyn is one of my favorite actresses, back from when she played the mother in "A River Runs Through It." She plays Grace with dignity, warmth, and just a touch of desperation. Craig Ferguson is nothing like the character he plays on Drew Carey. His Matthew is sweet, concerned, and a little irresponsible, but trying hard to do the best he can. The supporting cast is wonderful too, adding a richness to the village in Cornwall that makes you care about what is happening, and believe it to be possible. Martin Clunes as Dr. Bamford, and Valerie Edmond as Matthew's girlfriend, Nicky, provide a sense of whimsy and groundedness to the events that unfold. Combine the performances with a good soundtrack and the beautiful setting on the Cornish coast and you have a great "little" film in which you will discover new things with each viewing.

My friend Aleta and I saw this movie together too in the theater and it played to a packed house. We are both middle-aged women so we have become over time big Brenda Blethyn fans. We doubted that any American movie maker would have made this film with a middle-aged woman, Blethyn, as not only the leading character but also the lead ROMANTIC character. This film contains the ultimate dose of charm, humor and whimsy as only the British can show in their own unique fashion. Admittedly, sometimes I "get" their funny movies and sometimes I don't. This one we both "got" and were laughing uproariously throughout it as was our audience. Yes, it goes a bit over the top at the end but it's a very "feel good" ending and this movie was a bit of a fairy tale anyway so it didn't bother us. The plot involves a newly widowed and thus impoverished Blethyn who is a top gardener in her village. When her gardener brings her his marijuana stash for rejuvenation, they decide to grow more and sell a big crop of it to a drug dealer so as to solve her money problems. Seeing Blethyn trying to find a drug dealer in London on her own is worth the price of admission alone for outright hilarity. If the film maker had chosen heroin as the drug the movie obviously would not have worked. However, the use of marijuana in this movie is about as "serious" as its use in the old Cheech and Chong movies. I also doubt that English Cornish villages, as shown here, could in real life be this utterly charming and perfect but I sure loved the fantasy of it in the movie.

Absolutely loved this British Comedy! In the spirit of "The Full Monty" this story revolves around a get rich scheme in England. Grace is left a widow by the death of her husband and a pauper as well. She had no idea he had mortgaged their 300 year old house and everything in it. But, along comes the solution. She is a wonderful greenhouse gardener and her gardener beings a problem to her... A couple of his plants are dying and he needs and expert.

Just what his plants are leads to some of the funniest parts of the movie. Between that and the entire town turning a blind eye to her new project, as they all "love Grace" will make you laugh out loud.

Wonderful "real people" ensemble cast. No one is too beautiful and in fact more than a few are the average kind of person.

Everyone over 18 that likes a good comedy should see this one.

We got to discussing favorite movies at work recently, and Vicki, one of the nurses I work with in the recovery room, said she'd seen Saving Grace and had really loved it. She gave me a short recap of the film, and I decided it was worth a couple of hours of time and bought it. Normally I'm the type of movie goer who labors ad infinitum over the implications of each character's actions, and certainly the underlying drug theme might well have brought out that tendency with a vengeance, but in viewing Saving Grace, I was so beguiled by the charm of the village and it's delightful residents that I was able to suspend criticality and just enjoy my "visit."

The venue of the story is a colorful coastal village in England. Though a little bleak, the surrounding country side is open and green, with wonderful vistas of the sea, and the village is a cluster of quaint, old, stone buildings along narrow, little streets. The title character, Grace, is the lady of the local manor and presides graciously over the social activities of her neighborhood. Her home is a gorgeous vine covered house in the midst of well kept grounds, a home she loves and which she is unknowingly about to lose due to the capricious financial habits of her philandering and recently deceased spouse. The story turns on Grace's outrageous plans to save her home and the naivety with which she pursues them, assisted or at least abetted by an assortment of delightful neighbors including her gardener, her doctor and even her husband's former mistress.

Grace is played with great skill by Brenda Blethyn. She's pretty and perky and just at "that age" where a women who had been financially independent for most of her life might find it difficult to start anew. Even as she starts on her "life of crime"-"I'm going to be a drugs dealer!"--one can't help but cheer her on for her audacity, just as most of her neighbors come to do. Beset by collection notices with every post, the intrusion of an assessor who arrives as her door to evaluate her house for auction, and phone calls from a persistent London creditor, Grace takes the bull by the horns and bursts-or more properly blunders--onto the drug scene. Craig Ferguson as her Scottish gardener Matthew, is the perfect instigator, naive enough himself to be funny but opportunist enough to see their approach to saving the manor as viable.

Even though my husband and I are frequently at odds with respect to our film preferences, we both enjoyed this movie. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and light hearted way to spend an evening.

I loved this movie right from the start. Craig Ferguson and Brenda Blethyn are wonderful together, and some of the scenes of little old ladies geting (unknowingly) giggly on "tea" are just a hoot. I'd always liked Craig Ferguson as Mr Wick on the "The Drew Carey Show", and it's nice to see that there is so much more to him than just that character.

Grace Trevethen (Brenda Blethyn)is recently widowed, and finds that her husband has left her with massive debts and no means of paying them off. Everyone likes Grace, so they try to be as helpful as they can. The Vicar (Leslie Phillips) tries to help sort out her tangled finances. "Do you have a stock portfolio?" he asks her "No, what's that?" she asks. "I don't know, I just thought you might have one" he replies. Grace, who grows orchids, finds out that her gardener Matthew (Craig Ferguson) grows marijuana, and has the idea of going in for large scale production in her greenhouse. They go shopping for supplies at the local DIY centre and meet the bank manager with his gorgeous Scandanavian boyfriend. "He doesn't talk much" the bank manager explains, "Does he have to?" Grace asks.

Soon the marijuana is flourishing, and Grace needs to find a dealer to sell it to. She insists on going to London to look for one herself, since she has found out that Matthew's girlfriend is pregnant, and she doesn't want him to risk going to jail. She is hopelessly unsuccesful at finding a dealer, she looks far too respectable. so she enlists the help of her husband's mistress, a sophisticated Londoner, who puts her in touch with a dealer. He's not big time enough to buy all Grace's plants, but he finds her someone who can, a rich powerful Frenchman who also happens to be extremely gorgeous. Meanwhile Matthew and the local doctor (Martin Clunes) have followed Grace to London to try and protect her. Back in Cornwall, the two innocent old ladies who keep the village shop are drinking what they think is tea that they have taken from Grace's greenhouse and are getting very high. Soon everyone is heading back to Cornwall for the hilarious climax of the film.

This is a very funny and delightfully improbable story with wonderful performances from all the cast.

Saving Grace is an old fashioned British romp in the tradition of Faulty Towers or some of the other great British TV imported over the years by PBS. Grace's (Brenda Blethyn) husband has just died in an improbable manner and left her with some improbable problems, viz. a very large house with a very large mortgage and a very beautiful mistress. The very proper Grace has always tended to the house and in particular is known as a champion gardener. She has no idea what to do as she is slowly advised of the depth of her financial problems. But like a proper Brit she doesn't despair and before long her Scottish handyman turns to her for help in improving his meager home-use marijuana crop, and the plot is set.

Grace takes a plant cutting home and soon has it looking green and bountifully budful. She inquires about the price one could get for such a plant and when she hears the answer it seems like gardening could, indeed, be her salvation. You can almost see the gears working in this wonderful actress' head! From initial dawning we go to full scale production while dodging the local constable, the bank owner, the vicar and yet the whole town knows what's going on. Then we move into the distribution phase complete with drug dealers in London, chase scenes and farce. And, should I say, amid much laughter. If you don't laugh at this movie, you best check your pulse. There is a romantic side plot having to do with the handyman's fisherman girlfriend who is pregnant as well as the mystery of the hidden life of the dead husband.

The movie was filmed in the Cornwall area and has some beautiful shots of that part of the world as the land cavorts with the sea. The acting is flawless and rendered with both restraint and energy at the appropriate time. You probably wouldn't need language to "get" this movie as much of the humor is physical. However, the actors do all speak English, that language that keeps us separated, and after you get your American ear tuned in you can understand the dialogue without difficulty. There is, of course, a bit of a moral dilemma here, what they are doing is after-all against the law, but that tension is settled in a satisfactory manner leading to an acceptable end just when you though movies could no longer end acceptably.

This is a quite unusual film in that it reminds me of the British Ealing comedies of yesteryear. Brenda Blethyn and craig Ferguson provide warmth and likeability as the Middle aged widow and her gardener respectively. Blethyn's character is persuaded by the gardener to pay off the string of debts that her late husband ran up by growing cannabis in her green house in Cornwall and selling it to a drug dealer. Although the film gets a bit silly towards the end what with the introduction of a drug dealing gangster, the ensemble cast help push this film beyond it's TV movie origins and into the realms of a genuinely charming and often very funny film.

Although not without its faults, british TV stalwarts such as Martin Clunes and Leslie Philips all join in the fun and help keep it likeable. If you liked films such as A FISH CALLED WANDA and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL I suspect you will like the pace and acting of this film. Watch out for the two old ladies who run the village shop, the scene where they accidently get stoned and start eating the shop's produce is an absolute scream!.

I LOVE everything about this movie. It has a way of showing how people will help each other, even if it means going to extremes (I don't want to give away the movie plot). It has it's laughs and tears and frustrations. It was through this movie that I discovered Craig Ferguson. I highly recommend it. It has a happy ending too!