Streaming choice: An estate full of ghosts, Maggie Smith, and some enjoyable time-travel fill Julian Fellowes' sweet film, FROM TIME TO TIME

It's cast with a bevy of some of Britain's finest actors, it's sweet and sentimental about everything from the past to parenting to death itself, and it's quiet and maybe a tad slow for anyone raised on Transformers and other so-called blockbusters. Yet FROM TIME TO TIME -- adapted (from a novel by Lucy M. Boston) and directed by Julian Fellowes (shown below, of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey) -- manages to hold our attention, while alternately charming, moving and befuddling us.

Basically a children's movie (ten years and up, I'm guessing) that adults can quite enjoy, Fellowes' film (first seen in 2009) is set in England during World War II, as young Tolly Oldknow (Alex Etel, below, right) -- whose soldier father is missing in action and whose mother is estranged from the family -- comes to stay for Christmas at the estate of his grandmother (Maggie Smith, below, left). This great home has clearly seen better days and is now peopled by a skeleton staff (Pauline Collins and Timothy Spall, the latter shown in the penultimate photo, below) but also by a bevy of ghosts from a century or two past. Young Tolly soon finds himself embroiled in not only the current financial problems of the estate but the much more pressing and dramatic doings of those ancestors who lived here all those deacdes ago.

At first it seems as though only Tolly can see these ghosts (only some of whom can see him), but eventually we learn that this "skill" is simply something that comes with the estate.

Approximately half of the starry cast is made up of actors who plays these progenitors (some of whom Mr. Fellowes has since made use of in further endeavors): Hugh Bonneville (above, center), as pater familias (soon to be used in that now-famous "Abbey"), and Douglas Booth as his spoiled, nasty son (who would go on to play Romeo in Fellowes' recent and better-than-you've-heard Shakespeare adaptation).

Also on hand are Carice van Houten (above, left) as the grasping wife and Dominic West (above, right) as a conniving butler. Everyone plays into his/her role nicely, and some (as Ms Van Houten's character) are even given interesting moral shadings of good and bad.

The main theme, however, is that of young Tolly's learning to come to terms with, well, death -- of those characters from the past whom he has grown to care for, as well as one important person from the present. How he does this proves the movie's greatest strength, and Fellowes handles it quite gracefully and movingly. If you are able to staunch that inevitable flood of tears, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

From Time to Time, running 96 minutes, can be viewed now via Netflix streaming and elsewhere -- and is also available on DVD. 

Streaming must: Ignore the critics -- Carlo Carlei's ROMEO & JULIET is visually stunning

Yes, this new ROMEO & JULIET is even more beautiful than the famous Franco Zefferelli version because its interiors and exteriors, its sets and costumes are much less "busy," though every bit as gorgeous design-wise, while the amazing architecture -- the buildings and piazzas -- are simply breathtaking. The beauty on display here staggers the eye. If that were all, it would still be enough for me. Fortunately the film offers quite a bit more, beginning with the most beautiful Romeo ever to grace the screen (Pasolini would have been devastated) via the young actor, Douglas Booth (shown at right, above and below, of Christopher and His Kind), who, though British-born, looks utterly Italian. The Juliet of Hailee Steinfeld (shown above and below, left, of True Grit) is no match for Booth beauty-wise, but she's sweet and full of energy.

So the two make a lovely pair of young lovers (Booth was but 20 and Stenfeld 16 when they made this movie). The accent these days for R&J seems to be on speed, foolhardiness and youth. (We're long past the Leslie Howard/Norma Shearer 1936 version, made when those two actors were 43 and 34!)

Youth and its discontents are captured well by Julian Fellowes, shown at right, the screenwriter/adapter of Willie the Shake's original, and the man whom critics appear to have held most to blame here. Bull, say I. Probably because Mr. Fellowes has dared to diddle occasionally with the Bard's words, and even change things around in certain scenes -- was Friar Laurence (a terrific job by Paul Giamatti, below, right) ever in the crypt with a living Juliet immediately prior to her demise? -- certain critics seemed to feel that this prominent and highly successful British writer (Gosford Park, Downton Abbey) deserves the rack.

Yet his changes mostly work well because they add to the suspense and the hope we -- still, even now! -- hold out that what must happen somehow won't.

Fellowes even conspires to give us the chance to see what it would be like had the good Friar's plan have worked and the two lovers be finally united in marriage. The adapter posits that the Friar does what he does partially to help defuse the Capulet/Montague antagonism. For younger audiences, all this will add to the surprise and suspense; for us older folk, we get a little extra joy prior to what comes after.

What most distinguishes the Fellowes' version, it seems to me, is his accent on the pain inflicted by idiotic blood feuds between families/clans. Beyond its love story, Romeo & Juliet is primarily distinguished as Shakespeare's earlier version of something like the Hatfields & McCoys. What surfaces time and again, and more strongly here than I have seen it in earlier R&J's is the enormous waste and sadness inflicted by these "fights unto death."

The cast includes strong performances from its Mercutio (Christian Cooke), Tybalt (Ed Westwick, above, center) and even Paris (Tom Wisdom), while Romeo's dearest friend Benvolio -- a lovely job by  Kodi Smit-McPhee -- has, in the film's perfect close, a silent gesture and moment that beautifully brings home the moral of this tale.

Expected strong work is also garnered from Damian Lewis (above, left) and Natascha McElhone (above, right) as Mom and Dad Capulet. Romeo's parents, the Montagues -- played by Tomas Arana and Laura Morante -- are, as ever, less seen and heard.

And if the characters of R& J this time around seem more a part of the greater ensemble than usual, this is all to the good. There is no way, after all, that we can escape their story, its meaning and sadness, and so a cast of fine supporting actors is a blessing here, bringing the theme of blood feud against peace and prosperity to new heights. (Stellan Skarsgård, shown in photo at bottom, center, makes a fine and regal Prince of Verona, by the way, while Lesley Manville (above, second from right) is funny and concerned as Juliet's nurse.

Add to this the exquisite beauty constantly on display (the eye-popping locations alone should attract a huge influx of tourists to Italy), and you have an R&J for the ages. A word must also be said for the film's director, Carlo Carlei, a fellow whose career I've been watching since his explosive and brilliant early film, Flight of the Innocent, some 22 years ago. (It's still the best movie yet about Italian kidnappings, family feuds, guilt and redemption.) This R & J is his best work since that early film -- in every aspect from performances to pacing to the exquisite "look" -- so it is wonder-fully fulfilling to see Carlei back in form.

This latest version of the world's best known love story, from Relativity, running 118 minutes, and which hit theaters last fall, is available now for streaming via Netflix, and is also viewable on DVD. But why no Blu-ray? Better to see this one in glorious high-definition streaming.