On its own terms, Tamara Drewe is a hugely exuberant black comedy, unfolding over four scenic seasons at a writer's retreat set in a rose-strewn village overrun by city bobos in search of authenticity.

And given his deep appreciation for firm young flesh, the author of Tess of the d'Urbervilles would doubtless admire the flaunted bod of Bond girl Gemma Arterton, who's frisky in the title role as a homely former bumpkin freshly plasticated into a new identity as a foxy, all-about- moi columnist for a tony London newspaper - though I'm less sure that Hardy would climb on board with the decision to iron most of the tragedy out of the original.

Were he around for red-carpet duties, Hardy would surely enjoy the social satire in this nimble skewering of the English urboisie, seen here misbehaving wildly in the pastoral glades of deepest Dorset. Very loosely based on Far From the Madding Crowd, Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe is Thomas Hardy twice-filtered: first through the skeptical-sympathetic eye of the terrific British graphic novelist Posy Simmonds, who specializes in placing a contemporary spin on literary classics - her previous strip-novel was Gemma Bovery - and now by Frears, who translates Tamara into live action and retools the novel as a sex comedy.

Tamara drewe far from the madding crowd