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Tamara Drewe
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Justin Brierley

The surprising truth about the West’s Christian revival

Tamara Drewe is directed by Stephen Frears and is based on the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds and so you may think, as I did, what’s not to like?, to which I would now have to reply: where do I start? Where, where, where? I wanted to love this film. I strained with every fibre of my being to love this film and, had the fibres of your being been available — which they rarely are; you are quite stingy with your fibres — I’d have strained with those too, but Tamara Drewe is just so determinedly superficial, uninteresting and predictable that, in the end, it could not be done. Or, as one of my fibres later told me, ‘I strained like a mad thing but, alas, it was not to be.’ I think your fibres might have said the same, had they been available, although, of course, they would also have added, ‘I’d like to go home now, if it’s all the same with you.