AAH life in the country. Peace and quiet and plenty of cultivating roses and baking cakes.

Or not, in the case of Tamara Drewe, the hit Brit flick based on artist Posy Simmonds’ biting comic strip series, a modern pastiche of Thomas Hardy’s classic Far From the Madding Crowd.

Beneath the surface of the idyllic Dorset village of Ewedown all is not as perfect as it looks.

There are bored teens, cuckolded wives, sleazy writers and lurking tensions. Into the fray returns Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton). Once an ugly duckling, she has morphed into a swan, in very short shorts.

Now a successful journalist and columnist, it is not long before she’s turning the good life on its head. As sexy, eyelinered rockstar Ben (Dominic Cooper), successful but serially-philandering writer Nicholas (Roger Allam) and ex-flame Andy (Luke Evans) compete for Tamara’s affections, mayhem is unleashed.

Tamara Drewe Screened by White Bus Park Inn Palace Hotel Church Road, Southend Sunday. 7.30pm.

£6. Tickets from hotel film desk