Bright Young Things

"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.

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.

As one of the best assets humanity can boast to count among itself, Stephen Fry has delighted the world across a vast array of media, firmly establishing himself as one of my very favourite entertainers. How then, you ask, could it have taken me so unforgivably long to sample his Bright Young Things?

Having just penned the novel from which the film takes its name, Adam Symes is crestfallen to have it taken from him by customs as contraband literature. He returns to his life of yuppie indulgence (if indeed the film's '30s/'40s setting will permit the usage of that term) where he is variously delighted and disappointed by the tide-like fortunes of his financial situation, and the uncertainty concerning his ability to wed his beloved Nina.

Beginning with an expository reporter attempting to gain access to a lascivious and drug fuelled party, Bright Young Things launches us into the wild party lifestyle of its central cast of characters. The cocaine and absinthe combinations proclaimed by Nina as boring impress upon us the extent of the inter-war indulgence of the London youth. Things are somewhat slow to start, though the positively delightful and flowery banter of Fry's script keeps us both amused and entranced by the language of the era. Humour comes spouting from the supporting cast: the likes of Fenella Woolgar and Michael Sheen lend more laughs than the main acts themselves, who are generally left to present the dramatic front of the movie. Without doubt the film's best factor is the scene in which the hopeful Symes visits his father-in-law-to-be, a crackpot lunatic played splendidly by Peter O' Toole. As the running time finds itself elapsed, the drama begins to more firmly announce its presence to us, the stakes yet again raised and the outcome looking ever more bleak. The problem is that this never reaches a sufficient and acceptable zenith. No point of conclusion is reached wherein the characters seem to transform beyond the horrid snobs they began life before our eyes as, a shame given the potential this may have had. Not, that is to say, that the characters are unlikeable. In spite of their vices they grow upon us and become endeared to us, though we look on like disappointed parents, hopefully awaiting the time when they will learn the folly of their ways and grow up, a time the film never presents, or at least not expressly enough. I understand the novel on which the film is based takes this more desired route, the film's distance from this perhaps the product of Fry's wishes to carve his own story. In any case, despite the slight disappointment of the lack of redemption, the film is consistent in its humorous and dramatic elements, which blend together to give a decent slice of entertainment.

Almost certainly less good than it could and should have been, Bright Young Things feels like it fell at the last hurdle. That said, it was never at the front of the race. A perfectly competent debut from Mr Fry, one cannot disagree that the film holds its own.

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.

What a fantastic movie, delightfully charming, unrelentingly affable and irresistibly likable. Brilliant acting, excellent realisation and direction; this movie was a joy to watch. A bittersweet love story interwoven with a hilarious array of eccentric English upper class characters from the early 20th century.

Watch out for many faces in small but unforgettable parts, I especially adored Dan Aykroyd's, Michael Sheen's and Jim Broadbent's characters. Fenella Woolgar was also perfect and immensely likable in her role as the dazed and confused but eternally cheerful and optimistic eccentric. Emily Mortimer was flawless as the English rose stuck between marrying money or sticking with her penniless true love. There was palpable chemistry between her and Stephen Campbell Moore's character, which made the whole story work for me.

And of course Peter O'Toole steals the film with barely five minutes of total screen time, but that's the kind of talent he was gifted with. Watch it if you enjoy witty dialogue, period pieces and don't you dare miss it if you're a Stephen Fry fan. He is a very funny man and his direction which remains always affectionate towards the characters he's portraying in his movie, was impressive given he's better known as an actor and writer.

If you liked this movie, you would also like:

• Enchanted April - A Month By The Lake - Widows Peak - In The Bleak Midwinter - A Room With A View

All of these are in my list of top ten favourite films of all time. Bright Young Things just misses the mark to join them, but it's definitely in my top twenty.