In the book Uncle Edward eagerly takes Peter into his wine cave, gives him an exhaustive tasting, sells him much more wine than he set out to buy. In the film, a funny story portrays how Peter thought his wine was really wine made from 'his' grapes and, only after a multi-stop search finds out that it is simply his share of ordinary wine from the wine co-op. In the book, the grape harvest and tour of the community winery is mentioned almost in passing. Where the book only mentions the Parisian French, in the film we meet 'Evelyn', the frantic woman who speaks an almost unintelligible form of English, who has an eye for Peter, and who almost goes mad trying to shut up the neighbor's cock that crows so loudly in the morning, waking her and her house guests. In contrast, the film treats fewer subjects but explores most of them in more depth. It rarely goes into much depth, instead covers his and Annie's experiences very broadly. The book, written from a diary that Peter kept, is more like a survey of interesting places, characters, events, and customs. However the biggest departures are in style and in the characters. Where the book begins with their new year in Provence, the film begins with Peter's and Annie's final days at work, and old friends wishing them well in their new careers right before they actually move to France. While the book is organized by months, the film is broken into the four seasons, Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. The entire 'film', to use that term rather loosely, consists of four consecutive 90-minute films, two on each DVD, and best watched over 4 consecutive evenings. However, for most of us who can enjoy a film on its own merits, without comparing it to the book too closely, it is a marvelous film, now one of my favorites.

An anal-retentive person who expects a film like this to be very similar to the book will have much difficulty watching it. I use the term 'a version' of the book, because the two are quite different. But now it is also available as a two-disk DVD set, billed as an 'A&E' network movie. Peter Mayle's 'A Year In Provence' was an unexpected success as a book in 1989, and the BBC filmed a version of it for the 1993 mini-series, which I never saw.

A year in provence with john thaw