Running time: 133 minutes
Starring: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Michael Gambon, Emma Thompson, Patrick Malahide, Greta Scacchi, Ed Stoppard
Rating 6 out of 10
I'll start with a confession: I have never read Evelyn Waugh's classic novel or seen the much-loved 1981 mini-series which captivated the nation. But Julian Jarrold's much-anticipated big screen doesn't exactly inspire me to do either. It's an ambitious piece but one which never comes close to packing a grand emotional punch. Taking up the acting reins previously held by Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews are Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw, playing two Oxford chums in the mid-war period. Goode is Charles Ryder, an aspiring artist of lowly origin while Whishaw is Sebastian Flyte, heir to a fortune and living in the titular mansion with his beautiful sister (Hayley Atwell) and his zealously religious Catholic mother (Emma Thompson). Charles and Sebastian begin a relationship that will change their lives forever, in spite of their very different backgrounds.
That the film fails to live up to expectations is due to a combination of factors. The screenplay, by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock, is likely to leave a lot of newcomers confused. It tries to do too much, taking on Waugh's multiples themes (religion, families, class, unrequited love, homosexuality) at full throttle, but blurring the focus so that all of them jostle for position but none of them are satisyfyingly resolved. On this evidence two hours may not be enough to depict the source material.
But while the script packs in a lot as far as themes are concerned, it is also full of languid pauses. If watching emotionally stunted English people staring (apparently meaningfully) into middle distance is your cinematic thing then go to the front of the queue. This wasn't improved by performances by the younger actors which I found disjointed: the acting only really comes to life when the likes of Emma Thompson or Michael Gambon appear on screen.
Director Jarrold has all of the necessary accoutrements to make it look as lavish as possible, but he fails to inject the one thing that would have lifted it, namely a strong sense of drama. In the last year we have now seen a trio of expensively mounted British films about rich people in big houses, but compared to Atonement and The Duchess, this is definitely the lesser of the three.
Paul Hurley
