Dir. Stephan Elliott ,UK, 2008, 97 mins
Cast: Kristen Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Jessica Biel
Review by Carol Allen
Elliott, best known for the delightful Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and his fellow Australian screenwriter Sheridan Jobbins have based this movie on an early, not very well-known Noel Coward play of the same title. And while it is in many ways an amusing piece of work, it lacks the Coward wit in its dialogue and is somewhat inconsistent, sometimes attempting rather unsuccessfully to ape the master with the help of lavish use of his songs to persuade us this is really him, while at other times its voice is distinctly modern. It also appears unsure whether it's a comedy or trying to say something serious about the tragedy of World War I.
The story is set in the stately homes of England in the twenties. John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) brings his glamorous new American bride Larita (Biel), whom he's met and married in the south of France, back to home to meet the family. His mother Veronica (Scott Thomas) takes an instant dislike to the interloper, as do his two sisters, though his father Jim (Firth) takes rather a shine to her. And when it emerges that Larita is a woman with a distinctly colourful past, the fur starts to fly in no uncertain manner.
Scott Thomas is excellent. On first meeting her new daughter in law, she puts a wealth of disappointed ice into the line “Oh, you're American”. She plays the role to perfection and emerges as rather a tragic figure. Even at her bitchiest, there's a certain desperation lurking in her eyes. The reason for this is her failing marriage to a man, whose experiences in the war have made him a laid back and rather charming figure but isolated from and uncaring of the society around him and the concerns of his wife. The unlikely alliance that forms between him and Larita is one of the most interesting in the film. Biel looks totally gorgeous in the period costumes and brings a certain sparkle to her role, though towards the end she makes a bit like Joan Crawford in full melodrama mode. Kris Marshall is amusing as the butler, who takes a subversive pleasure in siding with the newcomer against his mistress, though Barnes is somewhat bland as Jim and the two younger sisters rather irritating.
The comedy tends at times towards the crass, as in a joke involving Larita and a dead dog, which has now been used so often in films, from There's Something About Mary to How to Lose Friends... that it's grown whiskers. It also fits uncomfortably into the film's environment, as does a sequence involving the family in an amateur dramatics performance featuring Larita and one of the sisters doing the can can, which is amusing but again wildly out of place. As a picture of upper-class England in the 20s, the film is unconvincing, being a highly class prejudice ridden caricature seen from a distorted contemporary, and I guess Australian, perspective. Despite its bumpiness however, it is overall entertaining and has a certain clumsy charm.
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