Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer

Temporarily trapped in a swimming pool, Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) bides his time with an impromptu tennis session in 'A Good Year'. - Contributed

The film, A Good Year, is like a good vacation. It is long enough to allow you to have a good time, but short enough to keep you from getting bored. It moves at an easy pace that keeps you relaxed, but interested and, most importantly, features some interesting people along the way.

Much of the film feels like the male version of Under The Tuscan Sun, with the same kind of energy and refreshing vitality as the main character discovers a new pace to move through life. Directed by Ridley Scott (In Her Shoes, Blackhawk Down and Gladiator), the film is based on the book by Peter Mayle and the screenplay was scripted by Mark Klein.

Essentially, A Good Year comes down to an attempt to answer a simple question that, if we are lucky, many of us will never have to face: your money or your life? It is not the kind of question asked by careless gunmen or overzealous pickpockets, but rather the kind that the everyday business world asks of us as we rush about trying to do everything, but live. With the work world pushing well beyond the 40-hour work week and technology ensuring that we never have to leave the office (as it can now come along in a handbag or a back pocket) life has become about work.

Another kind of life

Maxmillian Skinner (Russell Crowe) finds his life, which was on the yellow brick road to capitalism, interrupted when his beloved Uncle Henry (Albert Finney), with whom Max had spent much of his boyhood, dies. Henry's death leaves Max the proprietor of the vineyard in Provence and so he quickly leaves England to rush over to France to settle the estate, sell to the highest bidder and get back to the business of making money. Unfortunately, fate allows him to trip over the possibility of another kind of life.

The movie weaves between Max's memories of his youth in France and the present time in often seamless images that make no artificial distinctions between the past and present. Scott's direction is well paced and the soundtrack is fantastic.

The dialogue is often witty and the film features engaging performances all around from Crowe and Finney, as well as Freddy Highmore (Young Max), Archie Panjabi (Gemma) and Marion Cotillard (Fanny Chanel).

The movie is an enjoyable light-hearted (though decidedly not light-headed) flick. It offers a combination of good scenery, interesting scenarios and engaging characters. It presents a well-told, entertaining story, without any high drama, providing a quick escape from life.