A Month in the Country

The summer of 1920. Tom Birkin, back from the First World War and shaken by it, arrives at a small village church in Yorkshire. His job is to bring out the medieval wall painting known to be under the plaster. In the churchyard the archaeologist Moon has pitched a camp, looking for a lost grave. Both have come back from the war and both prefer to do their own work alone. The source is J. L. Carr's short novel. Pat O'Connor's film is about a summer passing: as the painting comes out Birkin gets a little better, and what he feels for the vicar's young wife is never spoken. That Moon is gay, and what that did to him during the war, is not stated outright in the film but is not hidden either. Colin Firth plays Birkin and Kenneth Branagh plays Moon; both were at the start of their careers. Natasha Richardson is in the cast.