A sweetly eccentric family vacation
Certain movies beg to be referred to as ''a nice little film." They're slight, charming, easily enjoyed, and just as easily forgotten. ''My Family and Other Animals," this week's installment of PBS's ''Masterpiece Theatre," is the model of a nice little film.
Nothing much happens in this adaptation of British naturalist Gerald Durrell's 1956 memoir; it's just a sweet slice of eccentric family life seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy obsessed with insects. And the movie is blessed with lots of paradisiacal Greek island scenery, as it chronicles the Durrells' 1935 travels to Corfu to escape the dreary English climate. Think rapturously sunny vistas, rambling old villas, lovable locals, and domestic high jinks in the drowsy heat.
Warning: Viewing ''My Family and Other Animals," tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 2, can lead to a serious case of vacation envy.
You've probably seen the likes of ''My Family" in art-house theaters, which is where this ''Masterpiece Theatre" would be if it were on the big screen. Before World War II, Durrell, his widowed mother, and his three siblings lived in a series of locations on Corfu. In the movie, they're a rambunctious bunch whose adventures abroad are light-hearted and offbeat. If there is any hint of profundity, it's in the vague sense that their taste of heaven is but a brief calm before Europe will erupt. Durrell's nostalgic tone is not only for the innocence of his youth and the bonds of his family but also for the simplicity of a time that would be forever corrupted by war.
Essentially, ''My Family" is a series of vignettes about how the Durrells let go of their British middle-class inhibitions for a time. At odd moments, it even reminded me of ''Arrested Development," with the family's strange habits coming to light in all their harmless dysfunction. Brother Leslie (Russell Tovey) has an unseemly fascination with guns; emotionally sloppy sister Margot (Tamzin Merchant) drives the local boys crazy; and Gerald (Eugene Simon) turns his bedroom into something of a zoo as he begins the collecting that will later become his career. All the stories hang together loosely under the watchful but wonderfully wry eye of Mrs. Durrell, played affectionately by Imelda Staunton.
Literary viewers will take special interest in the comic snapshots of Gerald's moody older brother Larry, who would soon become famous as the writer Lawrence Durrell. The movie also includes a visit to Corfu by Larry's friend Henry Miller, who spends his time writing in the nude. But ''My Family" is far from a portrait of the author of ''The Alexandria Quartet" as a young man. If it's about an emerging artist, it's about how Gerald's fascination with nature flourished amid the glories of Corfu. The boy's growing sense of freedom and beauty are the lens through which we watch the movie.
Without the dramatic heft of so many ''Masterpiece Theatre" adaptations, ''My Family and Other Animals" is not particularly powerful or memorable. It's a happy escape. It won't move you very deeply so much as make you want to move to an idyllic land of azure skies.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 
