Frears and screenwriter Moira Buffini make a funny, touching and witty film out of Posy Simmonds' marvellous cartoon strip that spatchcocks awful middle-class country life. Gemma Arterton is a delightful Tamara Drewe, the young woman who returns to her native west country village with a nose-job, micro-shorts and an ambition to write a chicklit blockbuster; she understandably stirs up the passions of ex-boyfriend Andy (Luke Evans), pop star Ben (Dominic Cooper) and slimy middle-aged philanderer Nicholas (Roger Allam).

An early, if unseasonal, terrestrial premiere for this sunny 2010 comedy starring Gemma Arterton as the titular journalist who turns all the boys' heads when she returns to the Dorset village she grew up in, sporting a new nose and some very short shorts. Based on The Guardian's comic strip by Posy Simmonds, the country house farce is fluffy and charming rather than bawdy but you could warm your hands on the perfect summer scenery.

Gemma Arterton, in saucy hotpants, returns to her native Dorset village to wreak emotional havoc on the local menfolk, in Stephen Frears's take on Posy Simmons's update of Far From the Madding Crowd. It's diverting enough as tragi-comic Aga-saga soap, but Tamsin Greig is superb as a novelist's wife who runs a writers' rural retreat.

Gymslip-wearing, stocking-top-showing schoolgirls (originally inspired by Ronald Searle's cartoons) club together to save their school by stealing a famous painting from the National Gallery during a TV quiz show in this tabloid-type remake of a classic British comedy. Rupert Everett plays the headmistress and her dodgy brother; Gemma Arterton is a saucy headgirl; Russell Brand is hopeless as Flash Harry.

Tamara Drewe, review

Gemma Arterton stars in Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe, a tart but essentially bucolic romp in Dorset.

Video: Arterton 'didn't like' Tamara Drewe character

Star of Tamara Drewe Gemma Arterton has said she did not want to play the character, because "I didn't like her" - but director Stephen Frears convinced her.

The film also features Tamsin Grieg and Dominic Cooper - who caused a stir among his younger co-stars, with Jessica Barden saying he was "hot in this film... but it's embarrassing to admit it".