This is a beautiful, heartwarming, penetrating film about emotion, growing up, honesty and love of all sorts.
The plot has several intertwined strands, all used as vehicles to show how people handle relationships. The story is told "from the diary" of the middle child, a 17 year old girl. Twelve years ago, a recently-successful author, his wife and three children visit a small castle on an estate in England; he falls in love with the castle and they move there. It is now 2 years since they have been able to pay the rent, royalties from the father's book have finally dried up altogether, the mother has been dead for years, the father has written nothing in all this time, the roof leaks, the owner of the estates has died, and they feel isolated, poor, and hopeless. The father has remarried, to a kind artist, who loves them all but is frustrated with the state of her life. The 19-year-old boy who keeps the grounds, whom they cannot afford to pay any longer, stays because he is in love with our narrator.
The new landlord turns out to be two American grandsons of the old lord. They visit England with their mother to look the estate over. The oldest sister is desperately trying to fall in love with one of them. The stepmother fancies an accompanying architect, the mother is direct and disparaging of the failed author, and altogether the progress of affairs is mightily entangled. In the entangling and the disentangling the characters are developed brilliantly and there is a great deal of insight to be had into the workings of human mind and soul.
I saw this film the day after the third LOTR film, "Return of the King". ICTC is picturesque and well acted, but it uses no effects, has few recognisable actors, is the absolute opposite of an epic... and yet it has so much more insight into character, says more about people and their hearts, that there is no comparison at all. ICTC wins hands down as a source of wisdom, from imparting that warm glow that comes from having a true friend, and through showing people having the courage to be honest and true to their hearts, no matter the cost.
Kay and I reflected at the end of this film that we could divide our friends into those who would appreciate this film and those who would be bored. I think that might be a very important observation, though I do not know what to do with it yet.