Bright Young Things * (2003, Michael Sheen, Stephen Campbell Moore, Emily Mortimer, Dan Aykroyd) – Classic Movie Review 6057

Writer-director Stephen Fry fumbles his 2003 film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s superb satirical novel Vile Bodies in his directing debut, feebly sending up the British press and Thirties posh folk, the Bright Young Things of the new title. The book is still fresh and funny, but the film feels blunt and stale.

You know something’s really wrong when even a top-drawer cast of Brit luvvies like Celia Imrie, Harriet Walter, Julia McKenzie, Imelda Staunton and Jim Broadbent looks clumsy. Only Fenella Woolgar, as the brittle, acid Agatha, has the real style of the show, although Dan Aykroyd has a well-judged cameo as a Lord Beaverbrook-style cynical Canadian press baron, called Lord Monomark.

Michael Sheen is conscientious but lacks lustre as the hero, Miles Maitland. Stephen Campbell Moore, aged 24, makes his film debut as English novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes, who wants to marry the capricious and frivolous Nina Blount (Emily Mortimer).

Couldn’t they have given John Mills a few lines of dialogue instead of just wheeling him on to snort coke? Stephen Fry has a walk-on as a chauffeur.

The cast are  Michael Sheen, Stephen Campbell Moore, Simon McBurney, Peter O’Toole, Celia Imrie, Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter, Dan Aykroyd, Stockard Channing, Fenella Woolgar, Julia McKenzie, James McAvoy, David Tennant, Simon Callow, Alex Barclay, Bruno Lastra, Guy Henry, Bill Paterson, Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter, Lisa Dillon, Richard E Grant, Mark Gatiss, Ivan Marevich, Tony Maudsley, Emily Mortimer, Alec Newman, Robyn Parton, Nigel Planer, Larry Randall, Anna-Marie Wayne, Haidée Augusta, Tracy Yarconi, Stephen Fry and John Mills.

It runs 106 minutes is a Doubting Hall, Revolution and Film Four production, released by Icon, shot by Henry Braham, produced by Stephen Fry, Chris Auty, Michael Winterbottom, Neil Peplow and Miranda Davis, scored by Anne Dudley, and designed by Michael Howells.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6057

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