Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed the Netflix series, Bridgerton. Heather enjoyed The Mother’s Day Club by Rosie Hendry, a historical novel about the World War II home front in Britain.

At first glance, What a Girl Wants and Effie Gray are two movies that have nothing in common. One is a modern comedy, the other is a period piece tackling serious issues of sexuality and patriarchal power.

For me, What a Girl Wants and Effie Gray have two things in common.

1. I’m surprised that I just now watched them (streaming on Netflix), since they both feature actors I like and a British setting.
2. Neither are particularly good movies, but both hit a good spot for Anglophiles and so are worth watching anyway.

What a Girl Wants stars Amanda Bynes as an American teen with a very British father, played by Colin Firth, who doesn’t know she exists. The plot is completely predictable, but it’s worth it to see the London sites, wander the rooms and gardens of a fine estate, and enjoy a beautiful princess moment. Plus, riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by Colin Firth.

IMDB helped me find one of the most visible filming locations — the distinctive yellow house where the girl’s father lives is West Wycombe.

This stately house was home to the Dashwood family for over 300 years. Benjamin Franklin was a regular guest of of Francis Dashwood, Lord Despencer.

Effie Gray is about the wife of author John Ruskin and the unusual story of their marriage. I’d heard this story before, but didn’t really remember it, so I liked revisiting it.

Dakota Fanning wanders through the film looking, in costume and pose, like the subject of one of the Pre-Raphaelite painters that her husband championed. Emma Thompson wrote the script and played Effie’s main ally, Lady Eastlake.

According to IMDB, West Wycombe’s interiors were a filming location for this movie. That almost makes me want to watch both films again to see if I can spot any identical locations. The exterior shots in Scotland are filled with beautiful, moody scenery. They aren’t British, but I also enjoyed the scenes in Venice.

Are you willing to watch films set in Britain, even when they are panned by the critics?