Charming the Hearts of Men

This sunny if occasionally awkward romantic drama sees a wealthy white woman getting back on her feet against a backdrop of the US civil rights movement. Grace Gordon (Anna Friel) is a twice-divorced, fading glamour-puss who returns to her Southern home town in 1963 following the death of her judge father. Finding the family money gone, Grace conspires with her cook Mattie (Starletta DuPois) and Mattie's granddaughter (Pauline Dyer) to ensnare Kelsey Grammer's congressman, while the town's black residents are being courted by Curtis Hamilton's dapper civil rights activist. As sparky as Friel is, Grace's journey often takes away from more worthy stories, but the film appealingly aligns us with underdogs from all walks of life (including Tina Ivlev's single-mother sex worker). Debut writer-director SE DeRose takes both the sexism and racism of the era briskly to task, though the slightly whimsical tone detracts from the seriousness of the issues.