A Month in the Country (1987) on Netflix
In 1920, destitute war veteran Tom Birkin arrives in the Yorkshire village of Oxgodby to restore a medieval mural in its church. He meets James Moon, an archaeologist digging in the churchyard.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.8/102,357 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
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Plot summary
In the summer of 1920, Tom Birkin, a World War I veteran left destitute and stammering by his service, is hired under a bequest to uncover and restore a medieval mural found in the church at Oxgodby, a remote Yorkshire village. He sleeps in the belfry, while the Reverend Keach and his young wife Alice live in a large, almost-empty house. James Moon, another veteran working under the same bequest, camps in the field beside the churchyard to search for a lost grave, though traces of an earlier Saxon church interest him more. The station master Ellerbeck and his family take Birkin in for Sunday meals, and he becomes attached to Alice Keach.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Month in the Country (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- All original 35 mm prints of A Month in the Country had disappeared by 2003, when the poet Glyn Watkins wanted to screen it at a poetry book launch in Bradford; he contacted the cast and director's agents and the fan clubs "Friends of Firth" and "Ken Friends" to trace one.
- A Month in the Country was shot on a tight 28-day schedule to compensate for its lack of budget, and Kenneth Branagh, playing James Moon, was available for only two of those weeks because he was performing on stage in London every night.
- Several local people appeared as extras, and local children were recruited by director Pat O'Connor to collect butterflies, which were released out of shot during filming to create a "summer feeling".
- The church that serves as the film's main location was substantially set-dressed: with original medieval wall paintings already there, the largest addition was a new medieval mural created by artist Margot Noyes.
- Composer Howard Blake wrote his score in the key of Schubert's Mass so the music would run seamlessly into it, but at the recording session with the Sinfonia of London the Schubert piece proved slow and flat, so he asked the players to tune flat.
- Because of the film's small budget, composer Howard Blake took the copyright to his music "in lieu of a reasonable fee"; the score was later arranged into a suite for string orchestra and recorded by the English Northern Philharmonia.
- A Month in the Country was Colin Firth's first lead role and Kenneth Branagh's first cinema film; it was Natasha Richardson's second film.
