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BRIDESHEAD REVISITED Send This Review to a Friend
Inevitably the boiling down into one normal length film of Evelyn Waugh’s novel was in danger of looking thin in comparison with the superb 1982, expertly cast television miniseries. The current “Brideshead Revisited,” co-written by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock and directed by Julian Jarrold, is gorgeous to look at and steadily engrossing, but ultimately simplified and thereby lacking the required complexity. Some performances are strong, others caricatured, and a few merely on the dull side. Still, the film does evoke the grandeur of the Brideshead estate in England during the period between World Wars I and II, the emotional complications of the relationships that are depicted, the rigidity of Catholicism and the undercurrent of homosexuality.
This time around the role of Charles, which spotlighted Jeremy Irons in the series, is played by Matthew Goode, who isn’t sufficiently charismatic but does manage to convey the conflicted character of a man lacking in the status of the aristocratic Flyte-Marchmain family with the stately home Brideshead as its anchor. Charles is invited into the family by Sebastian Flyte, who is gay and alcoholic with an unrequited crush on Charles. One should sympathize with Sebastian for all of his woes and anger at his parents, but Ben Whishaw plays him as such a caricatured oddball that he tries one’s patience.
Charles falls for Sebastian’s sister, the intriguing, attractive Julia, whose portrayal by Hayley Atwell is one of the film’s best ingredients. But Charles is not a Catholic and Julia is engaged to a social climber who in his desire to have her and a hook into the family and Brideshead itself converts to the family religion. The rigidity of adherence to Catholicism and its rigid requirements is personified by Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain, who is determined to get rid of Charles but needs him to try to rescue Sebastian from himself and his life-threatening alcoholism. Thompson, fine actress that she is, plays the character to the hilt in the story’s further simplification. The film gains from the casting of terrific actor Michael Gambon as atheist Lord Marchmain, who has fled to Venice to be rid of both Catholicism and his wife in favor of a more sympathetic relationship. But as we see when he becomes ill, he is pressured to ultimately succumb to the religion.
The older brother in the family, Bridey, is another caricature as played by Ed Stoppard, far removed from the more realistic and sensible portrayal by Simon Jones in the television series. The part is also greatly diminished in the film condensation.
Thus we have the still intriguing work with all of its present adaptation flaws, but nonetheless providing interest as a result of its pluses. A Miramax Films release.
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