I Capture The Castle

Based on Dodie Smith’s (I Octopus, 101 Dalmations) much loved, quasi-autobiographical coming of age tale, I Capture The Castle is a delightfully spirited adaptation, sure to win over even the most sceptical and apprehensive of the book’s many diehard fans.

Cassandra (Garai) is a 17-year-old with lofty romantic ideals, and a middle-class, bohemian family. There’s her flighty, prettier older sister Rose (Byrne); her wildly eccentric, artist’s model stepmother Topaz (Fitzgerald) and her absolutely barking dad (Nighy), who’s long since driven demented by decade-long writer’s block.

Together they live cooped up in the remnants of a delapidated castle in 1930’s Suffolk.

Naturally, when two wealthy, handsome American brothers inherit the estate on which their barely habitable homestead stands, both Cassandra and Rose envisage a way out of their aristocratic poverty trap, and a means of realising their fondest wish for life – to have a peach-coloured bathroom with matching towels.

Of course, Rose finally bags the elder brother, only to realise that she’s in love with his sibling, and her gold-digging scam quickly begins to unravel.

OK, this is not a movie to drag your bloke to, but as a strictly girly affair, this is quite fab – it’s quaint, without ever being twee, and it has the book’s subtle English humour down. (Sample quote – “He has to propose to me before he meets someone else. Or gets to know me better”)

Best of all, in Garai’s gawky, yet glowing adolescent narrator, the film boasts one of the most remarkable turns from a newcomer in an absolute age. In this superior heritage flick, she truly is the queen of the castle.