Oh, Hampstead, what did you do to deserve Hampstead? Bet you wish the film-makers had pressed on down Fitzjohn’s Avenue and made Swiss Cottage, say. On the other hand, maybe you did have it coming, especially as I once overheard one mother say to another in the Coffee Cup: ‘James? He had so much homework we had to send him to boarding school.’ That always makes me feel better, given I’ll never be able to afford to live there.
This plainly wants to do for Hampstead what Notting Hill did for Notting Hill and Manhattan did for Manhattan and Munich… nope, we’ll stop there. But it’s the sort of ‘love letter’ that should have been scrunched up, thrown in the bin and never mentioned again. Directed by Joel Hopkins (Last Chance Harvey), the film is a romantic comedy — I use the phrase loosely — that took as its starting point the true story of Henry ‘Harry’ Hallowes who, in 2007, was awarded a plot of land on the Heath having lived there in a hut for many years.
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