Bright Young Things

I was one of the voices of the angels in this film. It is interesting and light hearted. I must say that it presents an interesting view on high society in England that I would guess rings true even now after having lived in the country for multiple years. The characters are considerably well developed and one does feel a connection to at least one character as they view the film. The story is an entertaining one to those of us that are interested in life throughout the nineteen twenties and thirties. It gives a very intimate view of life changes in the younger crowd of that era in the twentieth century. Good to watch, oh, and if you ever meet Mr. Fry...he is an interesting character...

Actor Stephen Fry makes an impressive splash as a director with Bright Young Things, based on the Evelyn Waugh novel, Vile Bodies. The story centers on some struggling "bright young things" during the years before England entered World War II. Adam (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Nina (Emily Mortimer) play sometime-engaged young things at the center of a disparate group of eccentrics. They seem addicted to the London "social whirl" as well as cocaine. He's a struggling writer, and she needs a rich husband. He gets roped into taking a job as a gossip columnist because the former writer (James McAvoy) commits suicide and because his manuscript is confiscated when he enters Scotland. So the young things go to every party and write up tons of scandalous gossip for the rag, keep getting drunk and stoned, and keep pursuing money. Typical acid commentary from Waugh, and Fry does a good job balancing all the characters and sub-plots. Impressive cast as well with Peter O'Toole (very funny), Dan Aykroyd, Stockard Channing (hilariously named Mrs. Melrose Ape), Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton, Simon Callow, Jim Broadbent, Julia McKemzie, John Mills, Jim Carter, Angela Thorne, Bill Paterson, Richard E. Grant, and Margaret Tyzack recognizable. Fry appears as a chauffeur.

Moore and Mortimer are solid as young things, but Fenella Woolgar as Agatha is the standout. She's awesome in the part of the drugged out socialite who ends up in an asylum. Woolgar has several memorable scenes and droops about being "smashingly bored." Her race car scene is a scream. David Tennant is the repulsive Ginger, Michael Sheen is the queeny Miles, Lisa Dillon is the social wannabe, and Alec Newman is the very odd race driver.

Only real complaint is that the ending is VERY long and drawn out. And even though a few loose ends are tied up, it seems padded and interminable. We didn't really need to see WW II battle scenes, and even if the ending worked in the novel it seems very phony in the film.

The film Bright Young Things, adapted from Evelyne Waugh's acclaimed fable; Vile Bodies is manic in its pace. As such it is reminiscent of His Girl Friday (1940) with its legendary speed of comedy delivery. The difference with His Girl Friday the speed of the comedy delivery is applied to loquaciousness with a bit of slap stick. Director Stephen Fry of Bright Young Things on the other hand utilises speed to articulate the decadence of the period. As such he is affective in his endeavour of making his point of a decadent aristocracy.

The depressing aspect of the film is that the aristocracy are portrayed as decadent party animals, unlike the poor who in their pursuit of escaping their worries are (in today's post modern Britain) often labelled as 'feckless' by the tabloid press. But as the impoverished poor struggled to feed themselves across Europe during the inter-war period, the aristocracy idly carried on without social conscience or obligation to responsibility. Such decadence at the expense of the poor contributed towards the rise of extreme politics in Europe during the 1920s.

Contributing to the masses' public perception of the idle rich decadence of the inter-war period was the tabloid press. The press baron in the film is shown as suppressing the realities of the issues affecting the ordinary people of Britain for profit, and thereby concealing truth.

While Fry adeptly captures the decadence of the 20s in Bright Young Things, Peter O'Toole steels the film with his outstanding satirising of the stereotypical English eccentric. As the eccentric of the upper classes O'Toole's character Colnol Blout is the epitome of English two faced diplomacy of the ruling classes. The example being when he writes a cheque out for £1000 to help his prospective son-in-law to marry his daughter, when he signs it in the name of Charlie Chaplin. A typical English snub no less!

Excellent film, well acted and brilliantly directed.

"Bright Young Things" is a very stylish adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel, "Vile Bodies". I felt the film captured the snarky satire tone of the novel and was a fairly decent effort on the part of Stephen Fry who was making his directorial debut. I found the film played fairly light and enjoyable; a bit like a meringue that way. I suspect that this is a film for those with a fondness for wicked satire, in jokes and an interest in period pieces.

There is a kind of manic pacing to the film and the cinematography which I suppose matches the feeling of the time. People had survived a war, and a pandemic so it might make one a bit dotty.

I was quite pleased by some of the work by some of the young actors who had never been in a film before. They had a pleasant ease infront of the camera.

It isn't going to be some over the top smash. It is one of those nice art house films that one later rents from the library and shares with certain friends who have a taste for colorful clothes and characters.

"Bright Young Things" is a mostly effective satire, with some jarring seriousness thrown in, of "Masterpiece Theater" Jazz Age costume dramas for its first seven-eighths.

Set in the same period as "Gosford Park," its conflicts are just within the sexual and financial eccentricities of the empty-headed leisure and wannabe leisure class, where titles don't match income or outflow.

It is more of a visual evocation of Noel Coward songs and incorporates some of his numbers, as well as original sound-alike songs. The frolics have some similarities to the simultaneous Weimar Republic portrayed in "Cabaret."

Stephen Campbell Moore as the protagonist is almost too good in his film debut, as his character's captivatingly serious eyes and demeanor conflict with his insouciant company, particularly Emily Mortimer as his dispassionate lover, though that justifies the stuck-on denouement, that even without having read the Evelyn Waugh book this is adapted from, "Vile Bodies," I can tell didn't have this too neat and comeuppance tying-up.

The most pointed parts of the movie are its acid documentation of the birth of the tabloid gossip press, including Dan Ackroyd as a Canadian press baron with a more than passing resemblance to today's lords of Fleet Street. James McAvoy is very good as a more upper-class betraying precursor to his scandal-seeking scion reporter in the mini-series "State of Play," and manages to seem like a real person, unlike so many of the characters who are just types or plot conveniences.

The production design and costumes are delightful.