A lot of fun.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Overlooking a tiny Irish village is "Widows' Peak," an area inhabited by a tight-knit group of well-off widows. The doyen of the group is the venerable Mrs. Doyle-Counihan (Joan Plowright), who keeps the ladies in her circle on a short leash. An odd member of their society is Miss O'Hare (Mia Farrow), the only unmarried lady to be accepted as an intimate. When a flamboyant, young American woman (Natasha Richardson) moves in, she shakes up the town by quickly stealing the heart of Mrs. Doyle-Counihan's son and for no apparent reason, making a enemy of Miss O'Hare.Billed as a comedy/mystery/thriller, this very odd movie falls short on all counts. While it does paint a charming picture of Irish village life in the 1920s, both the plot and the local dialect are nearly incomprehensible and the ending is too much of a twist. Plowright (widow of Laurence Olivier) is wonderful as the foolish grande dame who thinks she knows everything. Farrow, however, is woefully miscast. Her Irish accent comes and goes and she looks like a spaced-out twenty-something, which hurts the ending. Richardson is simply annoying as the pushy and mysterious American. None of the characters, in fact, are likable in the least and I didn't care about any of them - with the exception of the local dentist, played to comic perfection by Jim Broadbent.This is a confusing, tedious, and disappointing movie that should have been so much better, considering the cast.

Spoilers Herein.This is pretty thin Irish tea -- a light amusement. Joan Plowright does her patented old biddy. Mia does a charming if inauthentic accent. I just couldn't get two other pictures out of my mind. `Enchanted April' had l precisely the same feel and approach but with more subtle intrigue. It had Plowright and Broadbent together in much the same conjunction. It was made only two years prior.But one of the most memorable films ever was `Drowning by Numbers.' It had three women, including Plowright and Joely, Miranda's sister. I think the drowning son at the end of this film could only have been a reference to the end in Drowning, which also featured a town's gossip about a Richardson girl drowning someone. That was in 1988.JP would recreate her role as head of a widow's club in 1999, in `Tea with Mussolini.' It all seems to be glimpses through different windows into the same house.

I'm feeling a bit silly here, but I thought Natasha Richardson was British. In this film, she has an American accent that sounds very cultivated, although I couldn't tell whether it was fake or simply voice training.I do like this movie, though, in fact I like it very much! Natasha was wonderful despite my confusion about her accent, and Mia Farrow was quite good, although it was hard to really see her as plain as she was in this film. It was fun to watch, though, and has you thinking at the end. Joan Plowright was superb, as usual.9/10.

A delightful stroll in a Irish village ruled by the iron hand in the steel glove of local widow, Joan Plowright, who gives her usual impeccable and entertaining performance. The pace, the humour, and the plot are all perfectly executed, culminating in a climax that your best guess would not anticipate. Probably more a woman's movie, but then most of the best ones are. I have watched it numerous times and my enjoyment has not abated. Definitely worth the time.