FTTT at the London Film Festival

I saw the film yesterday and was pleasantly surprised. I don't quite know why they chose to split the character of Grandma into two and invented a whole lot of plot anew, but I guess they thought the original plot would not be quite dramatic enough. Although I do not agree, the changes were made in a sympathetic enough way. The music was a little bit bombastic, but the casting was superb, and the house they used, albeit not resembling the original house very much, worked well. I missed the topiary animals, and it was odd to see Tolly as such an old boy, I always imagined him as much younger. But a younger actor may not have done such a good job. All in all, a very beautiful, moving film.

Maggie Smith plays a grandmother that is much more "classy" and stand-offish than I remember the grandmother in the books to be, and the part of a housekeeper was added to provide the very warm, maternal and whimsical characteristics of "Grandma" in the book. I don't know whether they changed the character to suit Maggie Smith's favourite strain of role, or whether they just wanted to bring a strand of class issue into the film that wasn't in the book, to make it more interesting. I personally could have done without this very "Little Lord Fauntleroy"-like storyline, but it did add another dimension of complexity.