Product Description

Based on the best-selling novels by Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency tells the uplifting fictional story of a Botswana woman who fulfills a longtime dream – and bucks daunting odds – by opening her country’s first and only female-owned detective agency.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #411 in DVD
• Brand: HBO HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2009-09-08
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 451 minutes

Features

• Based on the best-selling novels by Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency tells the uplifting fictional story of a Botswana woman who fulfills a longtime dream and bucks daunting odds by opening her country s first and only female-owned detective agency. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION Rating: TVMA Age: 883929076666 UPC: 883929076666 Manufa

Amazon.com
The lead hails from the U.S. and the creators come from the U.K., but The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency celebrates Botswana, "the finest place on God's Earth," as surely as a woman’s intuition. In his final directorial effort, Anthony Minghella joins forces with producer/co-writer Richard Curtis for the pilot, in which Precious Ramotswe (Grammy-winning singer Jill Scott) makes her debut. After her father dies, Mma Ramotswe sells his cows and opens an agency, because she "wants to do good." So, the "traditionally built woman" (in the words of Anthony McCall Smith, who wrote nine books about her) leases the old Gabarone post office, hires hyper-efficient secretary Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose, Dreamgirls), and gets down to business.

With sassy hairdresser BK (Desmond Dube) and smitten mechanic JLB Matekoni (Lucian Msamati) cheering her on, Mma Ramotswe becomes a combination detective/feminist icon, sharing "endless cups of red bush tea" with her clients, encouraging women to take charge of their lives, and tackling tricky cases involving missing persons, duplicitous daddies, dangerous dentists, and unfaithful spouses (MI-5's David Oyelowo plays one of them). Produced for the BBC/HBO and filmed in Africa, the first season eschews gunplay and profanity for a fresh take on the small-town mystery series. Like Agatha Christie's Marple, but with fewer dead bodies, Mma Ramotswe depends more on her wits than technology.

In his author's diaries, McCall Smith reveals that "Minghella had long wanted to film my novels." Tim Fywell and Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited) handle the remaining six episodes, while other distinguished guests include Prime Suspect's Colin Salmon as Ramotswe's ne'er-do-well ex-husband and Emmy nominee CCH Pounder as a mother searching for a lost son. Why Rose, who turns on a dime between comedy and tragedy, didn't also receive Emmy recognition, however, is the show's real mystery. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from  The Ladies' Detective Agency (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Wonderful rendition of a wonderful book
Okay so it doesn't follow the book entirely but I really enjoyed it, almost as much as I have enjoyed the books over the years.

It has been shown on English TV already so this will contain spoilers.

The movies follows a recently bereaved woman Mma Ramotste, well acted by the little known actress Jill Scott as she sets up the only Private Detective Agency in Botswana and her attempts to get it off the ground with the help of her new secretary Mma Makutsi played by the versatile Anika Noni Rose, and Mr JLB Matekoni, the owner and super mechanic of the wonderful Speedy Motors, played by Lucian Msamati. Follow Mma Ramotste as she takes on cases, meets many new people who need her help from a woman who thinks the man who has turned up at her door is not her father, to another lady who has a boyfriend who may or may not be faithful to her.

Filmed in Botswana and South Africa, the film tries to be as faithful as it can be to McCall Smith's books and I loved every second of it!

This is the pilot movie for a new series, so lets hope it is successful!

The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency
I saw the premier of the Mc Call Smith "the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency on HBO - it was a wonderful production and the cast fit my imagined characters perfectly (I have read all eight books in this series). I can only recommend this to readers and viewers as a great experience.

I LOVE THIS SERIES!!!
Its a shame that people who have read the books are comparing it to the HBO version. I haven't read the books, so I am seeing it with fresh, unbiased eyes. I LOVE IT!!! It is well acted, funny, and it transports you to a wonderful and beautiful place where people live regular lives who have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else in the world. I can't wait til next season!