This pastoral English period piece must be one of the quietest anti-war movies ever made, with a single gunshot heard throughout the entire film (except for the brief battleground flashback before the opening credits),and fired only by a sportsman. But its effect is no less traumatic on the shell-shocked protagonist: a veteran of The Great War taking refuge, after the Armistice, in an isolated English village, far away (except in his nightmares) from the trenches. Hired by the local church to excavate a medieval mural above the alter, he uncovers, in no particular order: an age-old mystery; a bittersweet attraction to the vicar's young wife; a kinship with another ex-soldier (Kenneth Branagh, pre-'Henry V') and, finally, some of the dignity he lost in battle. Don't expect any grand gestures from the leisurely told story. Any positive response to the film will depend entirely on a tolerance for such anachronistic virtues as forbearance, charity, and forgiveness.

Colin Firth is "Birkin" who arrives at a rural parish church tasked with trying to restore a long-covered up painting - much to the chagrin of the local vicar "Keach"(Patrick Malahide) who fears it will merely distract his tiny congregations from his words of wisdom. In an adjacent field, Kenneth Branagh ("Moon") is digging to try to find the body of a man who died after returning from the crusades. Both veterans of the Great War, they bond and our story depicts their summer in their tiny community dealing with - as are they - the repercussions of war. There's a softy bubbling, entirely platonic but allegory-fused, sub-plot with Firth and "Mrs Keach" (Natasha Richardson) and Branagh's character is not without demons too - though these are more nebulously attributed by gossips and assumptions. It is not story that goes anywhere fast, indeed it is most aptly named - a period of time during which ostensibly minor events take place with a profoundly rippling effect on all those around. It looks gorgeous, the Howard Blake score adds a richness to the simple scenario with both men playing their parts in a considered and engaging fashion.

I admit the main reason I wanted to see this film was for the great Colin Firth, but I didn't realise it had the also great Kenneth Branagh as well, bonus! Anyway, basically, World War I, shell shocked and (for a while) stammering veteran Tom Birkin (Firth) arrives in a small village originally looking for shelter. Then he gets a job from Reverend Keach (Patrick Malahide),in the church he found, to restore mural underneath the layers of white paint. While working there, he meets fellow war veteran Charles Moon (Branagh) who shares his interest in finding ancient things, and is himself keen to find the grave of an ancestor. I think what runs this story, based on the novel J.L. Carr, is the friendship between Firth and Branagh, and a crush on the Reverand's wife, apple giving Alice Keach (Natasha Richardson, Joely Richardson's sister). Also starring Shakespeare in Love's Jim Carter Ellerbeck, Richard Vernon as Colonel Hebron and Tim Barker as Mossop. Very good!