Enlarge by dint of. Nicola Dove, Miramax Films Lady of the house: Marchmain matriarch Emma Thompson. ABOUT THE MOVIE
Brideshead Revisited
*** (out of four)
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Opens Friday in select cities
The adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel is not as nuanced as the lavish 12-hour British television sequence, shown on PBS in 1981. But the pre-World War II story of lost innocence is intelligently written by Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland) and handsomely mounted by director Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane).
Matthew Goode (Match Point) is superb as Charles Ryder, a middle-class Oxford student who is swept up by the aristocratic Marchmain family and their glorious ancestral home. He becomes infatuated with their way of life and with the young Marchmains, Sebastian (Ben Whishaw) and Julia (Hayley Atwell).
Sebastian adopts Charles at Oxford and falls in love with him, but their friendship is jeopardized by Charles’ growing attraction to Julia. And their highly religious mother, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), can’t help but meddle.
Charles becomes more and more entwined with the family, but the depth to which each suffers over the course of the story is strangely muted. And the progressive emaciation of the aristocracy, a major theme in the novel and TV series, is not as well developed here.
The saga ultimately lacks the emotional wallop of the TV version. But its clever writing, strong performances and sumptuous production design make for a plentiful experience nonetheless.
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