Console best movie i've ever seen.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

hemmingsn This movie is ideal for the task of escapism, immersion, the transformation of one's mood.The film has the perfect combination of giddy happiness and stabs of sadness. It achieves this because it forces the audience to CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTERS. A vital ingredient which film directors neglect all too often. Of course this compelling quality is thanks to the inspired writer Dodie Smith, but it takes a keenly in tuned director to animate a writer's vision on screen.The cast was picked because the actors were SUITED TO THEIR CHARACTERS. Again a vital ingredient neglected all too often. I despise watching an insipid actress who has been chosen because she is pals with the director. Both Romola Garai and Rose Byrne not only suited Cassandra and Rose, but also suited being sisters. The chemistry between all characters in this movie was believable, from Cassy desperately longing for Simon to view her as more than a silly child to her dealing with growing jealousy of her beautiful sister.If one is ever homesick for england as Dodie Smith was when she wrote the novel, this is the movie to turn to for refuge. It transports the viewer to scenes that could only be England. Green meadows, crumbling castles with damp walls, the need to wear wool en socks in bed, the excitement of venturing into London.A fascinating look at the age seventeen where one feels like they are forty, but are treated as if twelve and are being told that the passion they are feeling is mere fantasy.

Sherazade Romola Garai and Rose Byrne as stellar as two sisters coming-of-age and in virtual competition with each other. The film is centered around their family life as they live in a old English castle circa 1930s. Most of the film is told from Garai's character's point of view and through this you see her genius father slowly go insane as he struggles to survive the novelist sophomore slump, which isn't helped along any by their eccentric mother. Byrne's character is a seductive vixen who has a guy who loves her but she would rather chase after another, meanwhile her younger sister (Garai's character) is in love with the very same man whom her sister repels.

tjm225 ...set in the 1930s in the English countryside. The young protagonist, 17 year old Cassandra, sets down in her diary her thoughts and adventures growing up in a bohemian family living in a rented castle. Her father is a novelist who has suffered writer's block and whose declining fortunes have reduced the family to a bare pantry existence. Relief comes in the form of two American brothers who inherit the land on which the castle sits. Cassandra's slightly older sister Rose sets her sights on landing one of the brothers as a husband, and a lot of romantic complications follow. The film has many strengths, and a few weaknesses. The strengths include the beautiful photography and winsome performances by the actors who play Cassandra and other members of her family. The main weakness is some uneven pacing which makes the film stumble along in parts. However, the characters are well drawn and likable, and the film has a commonsensical ending which rings true.

Anthony Youell From the outset I shall declare my hand. The film was a beautiful pastoral celluloid eclogue, a verdant idyll as green as the dyed clothes which represented the poverty, the creativity of the artistic set - "Doesn't changing the colour of something make you feel godlike?" asks Topaz. - and the bucolic setting of the story. It is a story of creation - James Mortmain's creativity is suffering a hiatus popularly known as 'writer's block'. His name means 'dead hand' and signifies "the attempt ... to control his property postmortem" (Ralph Michael Stein 24 Aug 2003) His Muse has been dead or at least quiescent five years after the legal presumption of death and he sees his authority spinning out of his control. In his confrontation with Cassandra, he says; "I'm head of this family and I deserve respect." Topaz also remarks that her creativity is being suffocated or stifled by the family.The other aspect of creation is embodied in the two nubile young women and their preoccupation with "Romance" the opportunity for which arises with the arrival of two American brothers. Rose the elder and supposedly prettier, an erratic ingenuous girl who tends toward the unscrupulous, played with conviction by the Australian actress Rose Byrne. She says: "I'd marry a chimpanzee if it had money" as a desperate outburst on their financial position. Rose's elevation to the gargoyle to petition the imp for a change in circumstances is reminiscent of the devilish nature of the gargoyle in Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd". Would she consort with the Devil? She is certainly prone to violent outbursts (like father, like daughter)when she strikes Thomas her brother. The younger daughter, Cassandra, who turns 18 during the course of the story is both character and narrator, and is more introspective, measured and moral. She is the filter through whom we see everything. She is the cynosure of the events and the other characters. Unlike her namesake, the Trojan princess and prophetess, she cannot see clearly ahead though people respect her poise and Simon tells her she "wise beyond her years" having elevated his assessment from "consciously naive".Cassie, played by Romola Garai, looking like a younger version of Kate Winslet, becomes 'the little mother' of the family and is the protagonist. She arranges the match-making for Rose, inveigles her father into a forced retreat, mediates with Stephen, approaches Topaz to return to the castle and James. In a sense she is in danger of subsuming her own identity to that of Rose and the others. Simon tells her: "Not everything is your fault, Cassie; not everything is your responsibility" which illustrates the burden she takes on. This affects her and brings to the surface the less desirable and more unattractive aspects of her personality. She sees herself in her flights of fancy as supplanting Rose in the bedroom, and in Simon's affections - visions which she describes as "poisonous". Along with her observations of the Cottons getting the bigger servings of the ham at the return dinner party, we suspect there is a dark side to Cassie. But at least she's flesh and blood - and human. And more likable for that. In many ways she is selfless but she is not alone in that selflessness because she inspires it in others. Stephen informs Neil that Cassie is in love with Simon thus damaging his own suit. Topaz returns to help with James's redemption as a writer though maintaining her separate artistic career. Simon uses his connexions to promote James's new book. Simon and Neil agree to be "civilised" about Rose rather than becoming antagonists.Rose bemoans the fact that they don't know much about young men and are nor likely to learn, living there. This is starkly illustrated on the first visit by the Cotton brothers where Rose behaves too 'forward' and "theatrical". The "consciously naive" Cassie along with Rose is socially gawky. The American brothers are by comparison urbane and sophisticated in what seems an almost conscious reversal of the ideas of Henry James - Simon talks about Debussy's music while Rose's favourite piece is the contemporary popular song. Both of the boys are accomplished dancers. It's an unashamed 'rite of passage' film and is not without its flashes of humour. Neil plonks a cooked ham onto the arms of an aghast Rose after a non-too-subtle reminder from Thomas that the previous landlord used to send over a ham for Yuletide and that this year it was "sadly missed". The irony of the Mortmains serving up this same ham to the Cottons when they visit the castle is delicious. The comments by Neil about Rose's making up dance steps which causes him to tread on Rose's toes is typical of the humour - subtle. Some humour is very subtle such as the class distinction displayed by the stuffy dress saleswoman and the rude waitress demanding her pencil back and adding sixpence onto the bill because Cassie took the dog into the cafeteria. But it is also a film about remorse and redemption. Not until James confesses to Cassie that he would "surrender every word he had ever written" to hear his wife's voice again is he on track to start writing again. It's the catharsis he needs.Tara Fitzgerald is convincing as the long-suffering free-spirited Topaz who indulges herself in nudity in the open fields. I for one should certainly like to see more of this English actress. Sinead Cusack captured the brassy American accent of the thirties and Bill Nighy did a good job of conveying pent-up rage stemming from his increasing irrelevance.A pleasant jaunt through yesteryear. " ... the Castle" captured me!