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oselleI love Brideshead Revisited, both the novel and the luscious 1981 Granada Television miniseries that was a word-for-word adaptation of the book. I have no idea why anyone felt compelled to make a feature film of Brideshead when there was no way a 2-hour movie could improve upon the miniseries and I'd heard that the film version was bad but no one said it was BLOODY AWFUL and wow, I wish someone had because they would have just saved me $1.99 at Blockbuster. I rented this out of curiosity and I'm sitting here kind of stunned because it's virtually unwatchable no matter how you look at it -- it's a dull and incoherent movie all on its own, but as an adaptation of a novel it's absolute crap.
Maybe I'm unclear on the concept but I thought the film adaptation of a book was supposed to have something in common with the book besides the title and the names of the characters. I don't know how anyone got this script out of that book. Everyone is saying and doing things they never said or did in the book in a way they never would have said or done them -- not in a million years. They're completely different people and so this is a completely different story. It's nothing more than a plodding romance in which the book's central themes of religion, privilege, temptation and loss have been completely abandoned.
The casting is also dreadful. Charles is not bad but he's playing Charles as a straightforward nice guy, not as the pompous, self-absorbed prick that Charles Ryder really was and that Jeremy Irons captured so well. Sebastian was supposed to be strikingly, sinfully beautiful and this skinny kid playing him is merely kind of cute and has none of the decadent, charming languor that Anthony Andrews brought to the role. Neither he nor any of the actors portraying the Flytes (including Emma Thompson) convey the aristocratic confidence (and shallow, ornamental uselessness) of the ancient-money rich the way their counterparts in the miniseries did. And for pity's sake, it's not even prettily filmed, not once managing to display Castle Howard and its grounds to their full grandeur.
Oh my God, Rex Mottram just told Charles he'd have to buy Julia off of him. He did everything short of twirling his moustache and going bwhahaha. GOOD GOD. What a hot, hot mess of a production. Who greenlit this piece of shit? The very walls of Castle Howard must be groaning.
Maybe I'm unclear on the concept but I thought the film adaptation of a book was supposed to have something in common with the book besides the title and the names of the characters. I don't know how anyone got this script out of that book. Everyone is saying and doing things they never said or did in the book in a way they never would have said or done them -- not in a million years. They're completely different people and so this is a completely different story. It's nothing more than a plodding romance in which the book's central themes of religion, privilege, temptation and loss have been completely abandoned.
The casting is also dreadful. Charles is not bad but he's playing Charles as a straightforward nice guy, not as the pompous, self-absorbed prick that Charles Ryder really was and that Jeremy Irons captured so well. Sebastian was supposed to be strikingly, sinfully beautiful and this skinny kid playing him is merely kind of cute and has none of the decadent, charming languor that Anthony Andrews brought to the role. Neither he nor any of the actors portraying the Flytes (including Emma Thompson) convey the aristocratic confidence (and shallow, ornamental uselessness) of the ancient-money rich the way their counterparts in the miniseries did. And for pity's sake, it's not even prettily filmed, not once managing to display Castle Howard and its grounds to their full grandeur.
Oh my God, Rex Mottram just told Charles he'd have to buy Julia off of him. He did everything short of twirling his moustache and going bwhahaha. GOOD GOD. What a hot, hot mess of a production. Who greenlit this piece of shit? The very walls of Castle Howard must be groaning.