Very slow chick flick became a bit more watchable as it went on

Rating: 5/10 (23 December 2007)

After the first 30 minutes of total despair watching this slow, muddled and garbled chick flick, I was ready to leave and wondered why it was reviewed so well. What did I miss? But, I stayed due to my wife's effective insistence, but even at the end it still was just a watchable film overall, certainly not great and surely mainly interesting to female viewers wanting/needing a love story.
The skin-over-bones, skeletally-thin lead actress, Kiera Knightly, was a aggravating melodramatic mess(channeling a young Katherine Hepburn?)with all her exaggerated gestures, and with her very unattractive figure and underbite she was totally unappealing to me as a romantic lead. But, hey, the critics sure liked this movie, both "male" and female, as they watched and whooped it up while drinking their pink ladies and bloody mary's in their hot pink feather boas and tights, I'll bet.
Of course, Brit females and girly men everywhere surely loved it, but I'll bet that most men of any nationality surely did not, and if any non-Brit male or female understood even half of what was said I'll give them money. That it had garbled dialogue would be a big complement for the lousy sound. This is good film-making? Not to me. And, with its irritating soft and out-of-focus cinematography, the only visual things I liked were the '30's period sets and costuming, and the lush English countryside. That's it.
I'm as bored writing about this film as I was watching it. It is not worth any more of my words. Instead, see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and No Country For Old Men for two films actually worth seeing.