Or “the movie intelligent moviegoers have been waiting for all year“, or so the previews tell me.

So, let me first say this: you know how you nerds went eagerly awaiting for “The Dark Knight” and “Iron man” all year? Hell, probably, all your lives? Well, “Brideshead revisited” being on (the big) screen is the equivalent of that for me.

Evelyn Waugh was hands down my favorite writer in high school (I mean, just look at what I named my site, and then read “Vile bodies” and then it will all come together for you, maybe).
My mom and I used to watch the original mini-series (with Jeremy Irons AND Claire Bloom AND Laurence Olivier) of Brideshead on VHS till the VHS tape was no more when I was growing up and then now…Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, “the best dressed movie of the year” as Vanity Fair called it….my expectations were pretty high (and mighty).

And so, let me secondly say this: they were mostly met.
The story, if you care, is about Charles Rider (played by Matthew Goode, last seen being dicked over by Scarlett Johanssen in “Match Point”) who is just a poor (read: comfortably middle class) young man who arrives to Oxford to read history, which, in England, is considered what reasonable young men do, but really is a delicate soul that wants to be an artist. He befriends the very fey Sebastian Flyte (who we know is fragile since he is teenier than any girl you’ve seen and runs around clutching a teddy bear even while throwing up through people’s windows) who takes him to his grand family estate, Brideshead, presided over by the very regal Emma Thompson, the mother, where Charles becomes embroiled (as one does in early 20th century British novels) in circumstances involving riches, omnisexuality (for, oh my, both Sebastian and his sister Julia lust and love after him) and vaaaaaast amounts of Catholic guilt.

The movie takes us, in all the right and picturesque ways through picnics in the British countryside, canals of Venice (the Flyte father, a sinner, lives in Venice with his lover), ships sailing across oceans, Moroccan opium dens and spires of Oxford.
It is eye candy of premium quality.
It is also both restrained and excessive as those times tended to be, and for some reason, all the Catholicism bothered me much more now then in did in 1994 when I read the book first. But then, I am petrified of organized religion of any kind, and apparently this fear has only deepened with my ripe old age.

The cast is predictably good. Matthew Goode is likable though nowhere near as adept at indicating the charisma and deep internal life of Charles as someone like Jeremy Irons was (and I cannot stop thinking about how teeny his head is). Ben Winshaw, who plays Sebastian, is finally living up to the promise of all the Hamlet hype he has in England (”Perfume” which was supposed to be his big screen break veered into ridiculous), Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon and Gretta Schacchi are predictably flawless (Thompson’s lower jaw movement IS a masterclass of emotion, and always will be) and newcomer Hayley Attwell as Julia is refreshingly both a porcelain English rose and a real woman, and is generating the kind of buzz Kate Beckinsale did back when she did Emma, so expect to see her in bad vampire movies and mediocre American romantic comedies any time soon.

On top of that, the cinematography is terrific (to quote the New York Times: “The cinematographer, Jess Hall, renders Gothic interiors in a chiaroscuro as rich and smooth as béarnaise sauce.”), the direction decent and the sticking to the original material pretty good (so much of the book is about internal struggle that trying to put that on screen was always going to be hard), the house (which really IS a character) is as glorious as one can hope and I thouroughly enjoyed it.

Yes, it could have been better.
Yes, there were distinct flaws in the system.
Yes, I still like the mini-series better.
But I recommend seeing this.
Preferably on a Saturday right between a picnic and a museum.
You know, for a nice, civilized, no punches time.

 Send to a Friend