Love for Lydia

Edward's obsessive longing for the beautiful Lydia Aspen (Mel Martin), a once-sheltered heiress sent to live with two elderly aunts and a drunken uncle in Edward's small, English hometown, can be redundant and tedious. His childhood friends include the wealthy Alex (Jeremy Irons), a charming, even buoyant alcoholic whose vaguely incestuous bond with a youthful mother has made him an unrepentant heartbreaker. Both men grew up with sibling farmers Tom (Peter Davison) and Nancy (Sherrie Hewson) Holland, the former a naive pushover and the latter a country mouse bravely nursing an unrequited love for Edward. None of these characters is prepared for Lydia, a suggestively psychotic angel who plays each of them against the others in her bid for sexual independence and thrill-seeking.

It may be asking a lot to expect viewers to spend 13 near-hour-long episodes with these sometimes painfully unripened people (the series was originally broadcast in America on Masterpiece Theatre, in 1979). Yet Love for Lydia, based on a novel by H.E. Bates, is a compelling, unusually Darwinian drama about surviving a difficult transition into adulthood during heady times. Not everyone is going to come through, and those who do may or may not, for those keeping score, be the most cosmetically appealing or romantically deserving. (The series' very title, Love for Lydia, may evoke hearts and flowers, but in the context of the story it also suggests a syndrome of restless, compulsive self-interest, a shadowy period before one's facility to achieve an attainable destiny, at any cost, reveals itself.)

More than anything, performances make Love for Lydia eminently watchable, particularly Martin's difficult role as a complex siren and Irons's sharp, colorful work as a tragic, lovable rake. --Tom Keogh

But as to the story, I am a person who likes to like the people in the movie. Like would be way too strong a word for these charcters, there were only redeeming moments, in fact the characters are so human they are downright disgusting at times. Lydia whom everyone loves, you find is selfish unkind, manipulative, but beautiful and rich so why does everyone love her anyway? Your typical mean girl who's so pretty she can get away with it. But I won't give the story away, it exlores this wickedly selfish manipulator of men in the 1920's and how it eventually ruins not only them but her. It is sad, not your feel good story, but it is about love true and painful and about character more then plot although there is some huge tense explosions of that here and there in the end that shock and sadden. So I have mixed feelings, you don't like the main people too awfully much but they are interesting to watch just when you hope they'll be nice. There are a few genuinely kind few like Tom and Nancy, not main characters but they balence it out. And Alex played by Jeremy Irons is intrigueing and not so bad as a faithful friend.

We watched these Lydia epiosodes every night until the end, you want to know what will happen, it does hook you, and you invest yourself in the characters, wondering where their lives will take them. But it is a tragedy of sorts. I will say the acting in this film was superb and outstanding by all, not one left you wanting.

Recommended: The House of Elliot a feel good series set in 1920's starring two strong female leads, and Poldark more tragic if you like that. Both are period pieces.


True love....   January 18, 2004
Dianne Foster (USA)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful

LOVE FOR LYDIA, written by H.E. Bates (Darling Buds of May, My Uncle Silas) is 650 minutes of one of the best BBC/Masterpiece Theater presentations I've seen. The quality of the DVD transfer is B- but the story is so compelling, the photography so beautiful, and life in rural England in the late 1920's and early 1930's is so lovingly depicted that you will probably not care.

LYDIA is a love story, but it is also a complex psychological drama with fabulous character development. The six main characters and several secondary characters (played by stellar actors) exhibit all the strengths and weaknesses known to humans-especially envy and jealousy and undying friendship. The plot is deceptively simple - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl. However, you won't know the outcome until the last five minutes of the DVD as several boys meet several girls and everything is in a muddle most of the time. "You will be difficult" Lydia says to Richardson on more than one occasion-an understatement of the facts.

The protagonist Edward Richardson (Christopher Blake), called Richardson by his friend Tom (Peter Davidson) and best pal Alex Sanderson (Jeremy Irons) becomes a mature man and a published writer by the end of the tale. Lydia Aspen (Mel Martin)-the object of Richardson's affection-has been characterized as a "charming young girl" and a "self-centered flapper" in some of the `blurbs' advertising the DVD, but Lydia is far more complex than either of these labels indicates. Lydia is a privileged young woman to be sure (heiress to the manor born) but she exhibits concern and caring for others on many occasions. During the course of the tale she changes from a shy teenager into a mature young woman. At one point following a devastating death she "parties" far too much for her own good, but this period receives very little screen time (the repercussions of her drinking receive more time).

Let me put it this way, if you are a Jane Austin fan and love all the twists and turns and near misses of Austin's lovers and think premarital sex is okay (tastefully done by the BBC of course) you will probably be a fan of LYDIA.