A Village Affair (1995) was directed by Moira Armstrong from a novel by Joanna Trollope. The plot is fairly basic--a city couple move from London to a country village. Troubles ensue.However, if you look more closely, troubles were brewing already. Nathaniel Parker plays Martin Jordan, a handsome and successful lawyer. He has two women in his life--his wife, Alice (Sophie Ward) and his mother Cecily Jordan (Claire Bloom). There's no question about who pulls the strings. Cecily is rich, successful, and extraordinarily intrusive. In the village we meet all the standard British Village Types--the meddling storekeeper, the meddling neighbors, the lord and lady of the manor. Most important, we meet Clodagh Unwin, their wild daughter, recently returned home and looking for something--maybe just trouble. (Also add in visiting evil brother Anthony Jordan, who is a really bad guy. He does everything villainous but twirl his mustache.)Still, if you can get past, "This is a village. We all know everyone's business," you can enjoy the subtleties of the movie, and the excellent acting. Also, the plot takes some twists and turns for which I wasn't prepared, which certainly makes the film more interesting.The picture really centers around Alice. Sophie Ward is an excellent Alice. In fact, she reminded me of Lewis Caroll's Alice--beset on every side by new and difficult challenges, and slowly becoming tough enough to cope.We saw this movie on a used VHS tape. I don't know if it's available in DVD. It worked very well on the small screen. I wouldn't say "A Village Affair" is a must-see film, but if you can find it, I'd recommend it. It's carrying an abysmal IMDb rating, but it's better than that.P.S. Notice how neatly director Armstrong frames the movie with the first and last scene.P.P.S. Take a careful look at daughter Natasha Jordan. It's a tiny role, but great things happened later to the actor who played it.

It was honestly the most saddest and powerful film I have ever seen! I was so disappointed that the ending was not what it seemed to be. There was a lot of grief in this film as if there was a funeral taking place that you would've already cried anyway.I was so devastated for Claudia that she didn't get Alice and the support of her parents even! I also hated that no one in the village accepted Alice for who she was really was except a few but that was it. It was like everyone in that village would make your life so hard by not communicating to you or just going into your business! The way Martin really raped Alice would completely shock you especially of how angry he was when he found out Alice cheated on him. Sure didn't he try to seduce Claudia to be his mistress? Alice shouldn't have at least tried to give him a second chance, he didn't really want it after all!If I had any positives about this film, I would just say Alice and Claudia's love was better then the mess created!

I enjoyed this movie very much. Every technical detail, every gesture of every actor, all the lovely sceneries so lush and green and the mounting tension within the storyline. All that professionalism kept me riveted to my seat from beginning to end. It was AFTER the movie was over, when I wiped the abundant tears running fluently down my old cheeks that my thinking mind took over my emotional one and started thinking about the whole thing.************************* SPOILERS AHEAD ******************************The ending is the weakest part of this movie. It really spoils everything done before. Were the producers afraid of the TV audience? Did the sponsor threatened to leave the production if they didn't end it like it did? We'll never know.My feeling was that the lesbian love couldn't possibly end up happily while the poor sucker (read husband) was left behind with his macho ego totally crushed. Impossible. Unpardonable. Unspeakable.Ergo, she resigns her lesbian new love and goes back --happy as the seven dwarfs, singing with her three children in the back of the car "Happy Days Are Here To Stay" or something similar-- to her nice, pure husband that never made her happy (even after three children!!) but that society expected and decided that that was the right thing to do.And it is really surprising and quite a shock that her lesbian lover didn't commit suicide or felt from some deep cliff to her proper destiny (the sponsor missed that one).A really disappointing film, considering that I hold the English cinema as the epitome of excellent movie making. Excellent actors and director, unfortunate script.

I too love this movie. But after reading the book I see how this movie could have been so much better. If you can get the book and read it. It is excellent. You get more background of the characters. The book is written by Joanna Trollope. She is an English writer.