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Escaping the dreary weather of 1930s England, the eccentric
Durrell family uproots and ship themselves off to the sun
drenched Greek island of Corfu. With the help of larger-than-life
local taxi-driver Spiro, the family move to a succession of
different villas dotted across the landscape. While Margo
fights off the advances of would-be suitors, gun crazy Leslie
blasts the island's bird life to smithereens and overbearing
intellectual Larry invites a stream of artistic types to stay,
young Gerald explores the glorious scenery and the wildlife
it has to offer. Watching one sort of the animal kingdom in
their natural habitat allows Gerald to learn more incisively
about the habits of an altogether different group: his own
family...
My
Family & Other Animals
(2005) is based on the book by Gerald Durrell. A light-hearted,
made for TV movie, the story follows the Durrell family who
move to Corfu, apparently on a whim, and then proceed to move
house whenever the mood takes them.
I
thought it a little strange that the BBC should remake this
story - there was a 1987 TV series starring Hannah Gordon
and Brian Blessed that was pretty entertaining. This adaptation
is pretty shallow - with all of the Durrell family being caricatures.
I never felt as those I connected with anyone other than young
Gerald. It was though the writer, in a desperate attempt to
not alienate those in the audience with below average intelligence,
was concentrating more on laughs than actual character development.
So,
it didn't come as much of a surprise to learn that Simon Nye,
who wrote Men Behaving Badly (one of my all time favourite
comedy shows) adapted this version. Without doing an injustice
to the god of comedy, Nye has a lot of strong points in his
writing, but deep and interesting character development isn't
one of them. Too little, I thought, was done with both Gerald's
mother and biologist Theodore (played by Chris Langham). Even
the part of Spiro (beautifully played by Omid Djalili) was
under used, which was a crying shame as Djalili was one of
the best things about this production.
The
soundtrack is a little too intrusive at times. You know a
soundtrack isn't doing its job once you notice it's there.
And you'll be hard pressed to ignore it. In fact, it was so
overbearing in places that I started to wonder whether the
director wasn't sure that the audience would get the emotions
he was trying to convey in certain scenes. Therefore, by turning
up the music, even the most lowbrow viewer would be able to
spot the comedy moments.
There
are no extras at all on this release, which is a shame. While
the £15.99 price tag is welcome, I would have paid a
few extra pounds for an audio commentary and some behind the
scenes footage. It would have been interesting to know if
they actually filmed anywhere near where the Durrell family
actually lived, or what other aspects of the book they faithfully
recreated.
It
would seem that I'm not the only one who is a little confused
as to why this story has been refilmed. A lot of the online
stores are listing this as the 1987 TV series starring Hannah
Gordon and Brian Blessed - even though the catalogue number
and release date matched this release.
While
enjoyable this is far from an essential purchase. Great production
values are let down by a shallow reworking of the original
source material.
Nick
Smithson
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