STIFF UPPER LIPS (1993)

Cast

Plot

This spoof of the costume drama genre is riddled with references to BBC literary adaptations and Merchant Ivory films. It is entertaining in its familiarity though the jokes are rather obvious. An interfering and precocious aunt (the ever-watchable Prunella Scales) tries to marry her pretty young neice to a bumbling toff. She resists and falls in love with a peasant. The issues involved in the representation of class and gender in the films parodied are barely touched upon. This is not an interrogative film, rather it goes in for cheap gags. An interesting premise, mildly entertaining but on the whole disappointing.