Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

A Month in the Country
Directed by Pat O’Connor
Warner Home Video 1988 DVD/VHS Feature Film
PG

Loneliness is the terrible affliction which has wormed its way into the lives of the central characters in A Month in the Country, a British film directed by Pat O’Connor. Adapted by Simon Gray from a novel by J. L. Carr, this grim tale set in the summer of 1919 revolves around a project undertaken by Birkin (Colin Firth), a veteran of World War I. Traveling from London to a small Yorkshire village, he begins to unearth a medieval fresco in a church. Isolated by his own nightmares of the war, Birkin discovers others who share his loneliness: another veteran excavating in the area, a clergyman who feels useless in the community, and the latter’s young wife who has no one who really appreciates her. A Month in the Country exposes lonely souls whose lives are measured not by abundance but by loss.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat