Tortoise in Love
Rating:
Cast: Tom Mitchelson, Alicia Zawadzki, Tom Yates
Director: Guy Browning
Tortoise in Love is a remarkable affair.
Funded and put together by an entire village in Oxfordshire in
England, it's one of those stiff upper lip UK feelgood stories both
in front and behind of the camera.
Tom (Mitchelson) is just back from the big city, where he's failed
to make it as a micro biologist or as a potential suitor for all
the "hot women" his village believe live in the big smoke.
He takes a job as a gardener and immediately falls for a Polish blonde au pair by the name of Anya (Zawadzki) who's in he village looking after a local kid.
But Tom's a bit of a plodder - he's slow to make a move and the entire village decides this is the perfect pair to get together, so decide to lend a hand....will it end up as true love ever after?
From its English countryside opening, everything about this film screams slightly twee; its lead character has a remarkable resemblance to a young Hugh Grant (and as much of the dithering as Grant's based a career on) and there's a lot of poking fun at the stereotyped way of English life.
But with predictable humour and terribly corny gags (eg "There's plenty more fish in the sea" - to which a character replies "But I don't want to go out with a fish") it's a fairly unremarkable gentle piece of supposed romantic comedy.
At one point, I found myself wondering whether they were actually taking themselves seriously or if the whole thing was a tongue in cheek joke which wasn't very funny.
If it's a gentle whimsical piece you're after, then Tortoise in
Love is for you - but be warned, the bland sweetness on display in
this rom com flick may be so much that you need to head to the
dentist straight after to get some work done before a rot sets
in.