I'm not a sentimental person, but I find this film makes me swing between delighted chuckling and being on the edge of tears. It's vastly underrated, an extremely pleasant and heartwarming light comedy - but with a core of powerful emotion. On the surface, the story is about a Welsh community scheming to delay two English cartographers in their work, with a romance between Anson (High Grant) and Betty (Tara Fitzgerald), and various cunning plans choreographed by the wily Morgan, excellently payed by Colm Meaney. But beneath this is the background: a darker story about a village damaged to the heart by World War I, and the Reverend Jones (Kenneth Griffiths) who grasps the scheme for its symbolic purpose in restoring the community's self-worth and, we suspect from one poignant sermon, in defeating his own emotional demons. This is a wonderful life-affirming film.
