Very few scenes were ones reported in the diary but Wood's film conveyed its substance very well indeed. Beautifully handled, for example, was Nella's naive inability to recognise Cliff's homosexuality. But I thought her 'Nella' was too passive. You can see the film's nervy, pensive introvert in her intimate writing but her diaries also make it clear that she could be feisty and would have come across to others as able and assured. Nella herself contrasts 'the quiet, brooding woman who, when alone, draws the quiet around her like a healing cloak and the gay lively woman who 'keeps all going'''.

Housewife, 49 (2006)The idea here is to make the fear of German bombardment in London during WWII as real as possible. And the focus is an extremely ordinary family--in particular the woman of the house, but also her low-key husband and two clever and fighting age boys.The best of it is really amazing at recreating the feel and look and fear of the times. The character actors are wonderful, even if they must be a bit exaggerated. The slang and whatnot is a total joy, even if at times there is a feeling of pushing that too hard.There is a deflating feeling that all this possibility and gorgeous period set-building is supported by a somewhat flat plot. It's not that the bombing and the deaths are a bit unimportant, but rather it is laid out with a kind of plainness that should have been compelling but in fact ends up being just plain. The writing makes sense--perhaps it's some combination of acting and camera-work that lets it all just happen too often.The music, I have to say, is horrible, a kind of television soundtrack that is out of place, almost patched in by a hack studio orchestra that hadn't even quite seen the film. It's surprising how much this alters the feel to it all.The leading woman, the housewife in the title, is a sympathetic character and, and the actress is compelling. She is a woman caught between all kinds of pressures, family and civic duties all around (and without always appreciation). And this pushes her to her mental limits (even seeing a doctor about it). The demands on the part, on the actress, are a bit too much for this production, and for this actress, Victoria Wood. The final outcome and maybe the larger point of the movie is something more than civilian life in wartime. It's about futility and sadness and perseverance. You might find the last scene comforting for its notion of quiet survival, or depressing for its lack of joy.

Victoria Wood is a famous British comic actress who has surely shown that she also has a superior for drama - both writing and acting - in this excellent made for television film based upon a real person. During World War II in England, housewife, Nella Last's experiences were recorded by the Mass-Observation organization founded in 1937 to record the daily experiences of British citizens for social research.The film starts with Nella as being almost complete frustrated with her role as housewife. She is a middle-aged woman who has devoted her entire self to the care of her husband and their two sons. The war has just started, and her sons are leaving to serve in duties other than combat.Nella's only connection with anything creative is her younger son. He is the one who encourages his mother to go beyond the confines of the house in order to seek fulfillment. Nella begins to blossom when she volunteers for the Women's Voluntary Service and starts to submit her observances of daily occurrences to Mass-Observation.Over the objections of her husband - a joiner - Nella volunteers for the WVS. There she must face the insults of the women in charge for she is merely the wife of a laborer whereas they are wives of members of higher classes. With spunk and wit, Nella forges ahead and becomes an invaluable member of the organization.At home, Nella receives almost no support from her husband - a man not able to express emotion. Because of this weakness, he appears to be somewhat of a villain, but there are a few touching scenes in the screenplay where the viewer is able to see past his hard surface to a man who genuinely loves his wife.Nella's son, Cliff, may be the most complex character in the film. Clifford Last who eventually entered battle was wounded and after the war, moved to Australia where he became a well-known sculptor.This is a fine film that gives insight into the lives of women of Nella's generation and invites the viewer into an "everyday family" that is certainly far from that.

When one has at hand an ostensibly honest diary of domestic life under trying conditions, a screenwriter might feel the obligation to mine it for some moral or psychological truth. But that would be work and not for today's screenwriters, most of whom seem to have signed a contract to insert gratuitous homosexuality, infidelity, feminism, and hyperbole into every story they adapt. They rewrite history as a kind of affirmative action to advertise their social values. Someone should tell them that beauty doesn't have to be meretricious and truth doesn't have to be juicy. Thus Nella Last's Diary is ravaged in being brought to the screen. The recent Miss Marple movies, among other recent adaptations to the screen, suffer from the same contrivances of the screenwriters. I can't wait until these hacks get hold of Dickens - Miss Havisham will be a heroic madame pimping out Estella to lesbians and to a married Pip. In the case of Housewife 49 the magnitude of the sin is squared because history, which should be sacred, is what is being falsified.