Negative review
Unlike the majority of reviews of "Bright Young Things",I found it difficult to follow,disjointed, and implausible,particularly the ending. The cast was great but wasted.
shareUnlike the majority of reviews of "Bright Young Things",I found it difficult to follow,disjointed, and implausible,particularly the ending. The cast was great but wasted.
shareI agree. I just saw it on cable, and I thought it was a waste of the source material and a waste of a good cast.
shareHave you read the book?
shareVILE BODIES is one of the funniest, laugh out loud books of his collection of wonderful writings. It would have to be difficult to get the pace and the situations which Waugh does so wickedly in just stomping on the upper classes.
I lived in London in the 60's when I was introduced to his books and devoured them as a young student and hanging with the remnants of that group who were now part of the Kings Road crowd in Chelsea and acting weird bizarre and totally insane.
Everyone loved Waugh and for American fare, Catcher in the Rye.
It is really quite impossible to have made a great adaptation of both of these really important books about each countryman's sensibilities and defiance of the class systems.
Do yourself a favor and read VILE BODIES as a starter...Most people do not understand the THE LOVED ONE was not great Waugh. BRIDESHEAD was.
After having read VILE BODIES...laughing all the way through...I was looking forward to this film adaptation. What a disappointment! It was DREADFUL! Stephen Fry should be shot. Dead. Which, in my opinion, is what he did to Waugh. It had everything, but nothing. Even the score was disjointed (ummm '40s big band at the opening?). If I'd not rented it, I'd have burned it. And Fry, in his oh, so pompous way, is proud of it?! Give me a break. This should be done in BBC style, with the original title, for a few hours. This film stinks. In my four balloon rating score, this rates half a balloon. Pfffffthhhh.
shareI tried to watch this a while back because I love Waugh, I love Fry, I love McAvoy and at one time I loved Tennant. But you're right. This is absolute garbage. What little of it that I was able to sit through made me cringe until my face muscles cramped. As far as I could tell there's NO redeeming value to this film.
It was pretty bad. but seriously, shoot Fry?
I'll *beep* rip off your head if you do. Fry, is in no way pompous. Check out his other stuff you ignorant cretin. Well, okay, your a fan of Waugh, so maybe not quite a cretin. BUT STILL, i dont want to hear another bad word against him.
Waugh's book is satirical and funny, with serious undertones. Fry's film is funny in the early scenes, giving way to the seriousness and direness of the reality of the times in the end. I felt the results were a film that was more thoughtful and moving than we at first expect, and a tribute to Waugh's book (which I've read twice since first seeing "Bright Young Things" on DVD a few years back). This is ONE OF MY FAVORITE FILMS EVER! :)
I'm on Flixster if you want to read my reviews: magnolia12883 (this film just got added on there!)
Watching the film again as I write - to be honest I'm shocked about the negative feedback this film has received. Having read much of Waugh, but not having read Vile Bodies until after seeing this film, I can see the obvious differences and understand the points that many people have made about the film being not as good. Well, not only does this go without saying that all adapted movies (apart from a few exceptions) are not as good as the book - they are completely different mediums after all - I felt not only this film was better than the usual bland fare that is passed off as good costume drama (especially anything produced by Working Title with Kira Knightly in it).
Witty and touching, albeit overly-sentimental in places, the film does feel very personal to the director, Stephen Fry. The rise and falls of the various characters, such as Lord Balceirn and Agatha Runcible are performed with excruciating emotion by the actors and feel vividly real - although over-emotional to some extent, which you can either forgive or despise, depending on your patience for such things.
It looks good, It sounds good. Maybe if you're in love or broken-hearted the sentiment will feel truer (Fry's script is essentially optimistic, thus the 'happy ending' added that some may feel betrays Waugh's original bleak intent, but to hell with that - if optimism is heart-felt it comes across as convincing, as I believe this does)
If you're feeling grim, the deep soliloquies of the novel are absorbing and deep. The glut of British character actors are a regular spotter's guide (if you're into that kind of thing) and the humor is great if your in the mood for it (Nina and Adam's phone conversations - practically word for word taken from the sublimely funny chapters from the book - are laughter in the dark if ever I heard it. Maybe you have to have a romantic view of British 'Stiff Upper Lip' attitudes - which rarely pan out in real life, but we like to imagine that we all have it in us.)
Well I've given up my attempted impartiality for a blatant plug of a film I'm not ashamed to enjoy. I guess I understand why people don't like this - prone to navel-gazing and self-congratulatory moments, but essentially lovable. I find it a shame Fry hasn't continued his career as director -as this would prove to be a flawed but attractive first film.
I'm pretty much in agreement with you, cityofglass. I think the book and movie are both decent pieces of entertainment in their own right.
When I first saw this movie on the Independent Film Channel last month, I didn't find it particularly deep, but it was mostly fun and witty. Stephen Campbell Moore (in his first film) and Emily Mortimer were fine as the main couple, but nearly everyone else in the cast stole the show: James McAvoy, Michael Sheen, David Tennant and especially Fenella Woolgar (whom I'd seen before in "Vera Drake" and "Scoop", though here she *really* made an impression) turned in nice supporting performances, while I thought Peter O'Toole, Dan Aykroyd, Stockard Channing, and Jim Broadbent provided some of the funniest moments. It made me want to get my own copy of on DVD, as well as seek out and read the book (both of which I've done since).
I finished the book earlier today. My understanding of it was that it was supposed to be both a romantic-comedy parody (Adam and Nina's on-again, off-again engagement) and a social satire (the endless parties, gossip, scandal, and boredom of the young idle rich), and I thought that Waugh's breezy prose held these threads together really well while carefully avoiding heavy-handed moralizing. Very enjoyable stuff.
Immediately afterwards I watched "Bright Young Things" again (on DVD this time). Having read the book, I actually found this viewing funnier, as I picked up on a lot of little details and bits of dialogue I had missed in my initial viewings on IFC. And while I know the film is not entirely faithful to the book -- it's a lot more streamlined and simplified, and the ending seems to treat the main couple with more seriousness and affection -- I'd say it otherwise stays pretty true to the tone and the spirit, as well as much of the plot; many of my favorite lines and exchanges were taken almost verbatim from the book, too.
"I know I'm not normal -- but I'm trying to change!" ~ Muriel's Wedding
I recently viewed Fry's work on Waugh and I think he captured very much the essence of Vile Bodies' satire up on film and how the characters did or did not investigate their "inner selves" relative to their humorous antics and endless partying. And I thought it an interesting design touch by Fry to see a crucifix in the room where Agatha was treated. A telling object at the periphery of the lives of all the revelers.
shareI liked it, even with Emily Mortimer in it, in fact I more than liked it, I was moved.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
I just watched it again, after having made very little of it the first time. I thought it was just because I was American and hadn't read the book. The film is somewhat chaotic, but the humor comes through clearly with careful attention and the occasional rewind. I'm convinced by some of the comments above that I should read the book as soon as I may.
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