Easy Virtue

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

Adaptation of Noel Coward play is both too clever and not clever enough.

It's hard to imagine a play by Noel Coward being made into a silent film but that's what happened to this one. In 1928, four years after it was written, a movie version was directed by a youngster called Alfred Hitchcock. Eighty years later, the task falls to Australian Stephan Elliott (

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

) and he starts well, with a deliciously stagey opening that gives us the sense of sitting in the orchestra stalls. But the energy doesn't last.

It's hard to put your finger on what's missing, since all the component parts are so good. The performances are snappy and the play, one of Coward's lesser-known, is quite a good one - an elegy for an age, wrapped up in a sort of drawing-room farce. But it just never seems to fire.

Extraordinarily, Elliott and co-writer Sheridan Jobbins have decided to help Coward out by adding some witless one-liners of their own. (On the tennis court: "Nice backhand"; "Is that a backhanded compliment?"). They've also added post-modern touches that are too clever by half: the soundtrack includes covers of modern songs, such as Tom Jones'

Sexbomb

, sung in a 1920s style and, even more alienating, actors burst into snatches of song but then stop after a line or two.

The plot concerns John Whitaker (Barnes) newly married to glamorous American racing car champ Larita (Biel), who brings her back to the stately home to meet the family. His snobby mother (Scott Thomas) treats the newcomer like a social disease ("Oh, you're American," she sighs, when Larita first speaks) but Whitaker senior (Firth), a Great War veteran with persistent shellshock, is quietly delighted.

The battle of wits that develops between Mrs Whitaker and Larita has some fine comic moments, and the story takes a darker turn as skeletons fall from both women's closets. But despite a knuckle-whitening climax involving a tango and a delightfully goofy upbeat ending, it ends up being much less than the sum of its parts.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kris Marshall

Director:

Stephan Elliott

Running time:

93 mins

Rating:

PG (sexual references)