September (Jacqueline Bisset, Michael York)

(Amazon UK link)

Realising that my husband is unlikely ever to read Rosamunde Pilcher's wonderful novels, I have started collecting adaptations of some of them on DVD.

I have to admit that I've been a little disappointed in some of the others that I've seen, which seem to stray fairly far from the originals. But ‘September’, one of my favourite of her books, was done as for television in the 1990s, and on the whole I felt it was faithfully adapted in movie format – even if the end of the story was foreshadowed in the opening of the film, making something of a spoiler.

The story basically revolves around someone organising a special party for her daughter - and then spiders out to various interwoven subplots featuring the various guests.

We thought there were very believable characters, and a good script which was well acted. It didn't matter that my husband had not read the book, and it didn't matter that I had; somehow the inevitable changes did not seem to be a problem, and I enjoyed seeing the various people - and there are quite a lot of them - come to life in some gorgeous settings.

We thought it a delightful romantic movie overall, despite the bittersweet ending, and look forward to watching it again in a few years.

Note: You can also read my longer review of the film 'September', written when we did indeed rewatch it, over eleven years later.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews