Brideshead Revisited

Director Julian Jarrold and screenwriter Jeremy Brock have fashioned a visually beautiful Brideshead that is much sprightlier and more erotic than the series, even if its pat, hasty denouement isn't terribly satisfying.

The new movie version of Brideshead will inevitably be compared to the television version, which was more than four times its length. But that's like comparing apples to, um, four times as many apples. The film stands on its own.

Wrap it in sumptuous costume design, unbeatable locales, and Emma Thompson's unforgettable performance as a grand, Machiavellian mamma and you've got a memorable time at the movies.

It's rare to find a work that explores issues of faith without veering into religious fundamentalism or militant atheism, which is reason enough to revisit Brideshead one more time.

It’s more fun than expected, and in its own middlebrow way, peculiarly true to Waugh’s own vision.

It's a great piece of work in a movie that, whatever its failings, deserves to be seen even if you swear undying allegiance to the BBC mini-series.

The amazing thing about Brideshead Revisited, outside of its stunning set design and meticulous direction, is how gullible we find ourselves inside these posh and polite surroundings.

Director Julian Jarrold has found a bright, attractive cast, enlisted several indomitable veteran actors and filled the screen with images and moments that feel at once staid and quivering.

A worthy compression of Waugh's intricate novel of upper-class British life, though hardly on a par with the earlier miniseries.

Fans of the 11-hour miniseries, which made a star of Jeremy Irons in 1981, may be saddened by the loss of details in a version one-fifth as long.

While elegantly mounted and well acted, the movie is not the equal of the TV production, in part because so much material had to be compressed into such a shorter time.

The film should entertain those who have never visited Brideshead. It might even nudge some to seek the '81 miniseries -- or, better yet, the book.

Its scope is broad -- it has three flashbacks in the first 10 minutes before sticking with the 1920s and 1930s -- but its focus is sharp.

Lush, bold, intellectual treatment of the Evelyn Waugh novel about Catholicism and nonconformity, which ventures where the fabled '80s miniseries couldn't.

Stellar performances and magnificent period details help the movie overcome some directorial miscues and a jarring score.

The film is plush and passionate and graced with elegant performances. Best is that of Emma Thompson as Brideshead's matriarch, Lady Marchmain, who resembles a cross between Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict.

Impeccably costumed and placed squarely in an idyllic time on the cusp of aristocratic downfall between world wars, it unfolds like a flower that somehow resists temptation to be rushed by ripening rays of the sun.

Though purists may raise eyebrows, Jarrold's film is well worth seeing for those who, like me, are putty in the hands of films in which people demonstrate mental instability by wearing tweeds to a ball.

There's a reason Emma Thompson looms over the posters for Brideshead Revisited: She has a smallish part, but she makes a huge impact.

The saga ultimately lacks the emotional wallop of the TV version. But its clever writing, strong performances and sumptuous production design make for a rich experience nonetheless.

Brideshead Revisited is opulent and watchable, yet except for Thompson's acting, it's missing something -- a grander, more ambivalent vision of the England it depicts dying out.

Emma Thompson makes the most of what she's been given as the formidable, tenaciously religious Lady Marchmain. She holds the camera's attention, investing her character with finely wrought detail.

If you're in the market for a veddy British drama and miss seeing Emma Thompson in her natural environment, Brideshead Revisited is a worthwhile two-hour meditation on faith (and the lack thereof).

There are the practically codified stringed swoons of a period picture -- and they’re pleasurable swoons, too.

The third significant trip to Brideshead Revisited might be the least successful telling of its rich and stuffy tale, but that's still not so bad.

In the end, the chief emotion it gave me was nostalgia -- but less for the vanished British ruling class than the vanished age of TV miniseries.

Director Jarrold wants to take as much starch as possible out of the material, the way director Joe Wright loosened up the recent, exuberant Pride & Prejudice. Yet Jarrold’s framing and cutting sense is strictly routine.

I'd say Brideshead Revisited looks like a million bucks, but in a world in which a million bucks isn't even enough to launch a Larry the Cable Guy feature, that's hardly a compliment. So let's say it looks like a hundred million bucks.

It has some appeal as a lush period melodrama in the manner of Merchant Ivory, but anyone looking for the episodic swells or precise literary fidelity of the old show might wind up feeling shortchanged.

Those looking for a good dose of romance will be disappointed -- especially when in the last reel Brideshead turns into an examination of religious faith and Catholic fidelity.

This new Brideshead Revisted, though imperfectly revised, is not entirely regrettable. You would not accuse it of subtlety, but you wouldn't turn away in anguish, either.

Reluctance to get into Charles' head leaves Brideshead feeling like a lot of other costume dramas. The phrase Brideshead Regurgitated creeps into mind.

What makes the movie most worth watching, aside from the stunning scenery and authentic period feel, is Emma Thompson as the icy, smothering Flyte matriarch, Lady Marchmain.

Brideshead masks its perceptive insights into a fascinating time and place with a slow, measured pace that easily could be mistaken for lethargy.

Jeremy Brock's screenplay hits the high spots, but leaves many characters -- particularly the status-striving Charles -- sketchy and incomplete. Only Lady Marchmain makes a lasting impression.

Brideshead has always been about the things we don't see, the emotions we have to intuit, but surely the only way we can intuit large sections of the plot in this new version is by trying to remember bits of the book or series.

Revisiting Brideshead Revisited, 27 years after the British television miniseries held audiences spellbound, will strike many as an unnecessary indulgence.

To no one's surprise, the whole show is almost stolen every time Thompson appears, creating a villainess of virtue, if you will. She and Goode make it worth revisiting Brideshead.

Why readapt a literary work that has been previously adapted to great acclaim if this limp noodle is the best you can offer?

It's all rather unaffecting, though the supporting characters put plenty into their roles, particularly Thompson, who displays the kind of starch that already has some quarters talking Oscar nomination.

You could not ask for a better screen adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. It’s a stunning, gripping and visually sumptuous cinematic feast that is like a breath of fresh air in the onslaught of summer movies. But purists, beware.

Though its tensions never rise to a boil, Brideshead achieves a certain degree of dignity by resisting off-the-wall melodrama.

Thompson makes a stylish, authoritative Lady Marchmain, though she seems to be playing high comedy and drama when the rest of the film goes for suds.

Is it an insult to say that Brideshead Revisited may be the gayest film ever made? If so, it's not meant as one.

The competitive love triangle it yields plays out as surprisingly stuffy and bloodless, and casting could be part of the problem.

A familiar story that could be interchanged with a number of ostensibly dissimilar movies until something homogenous materializes -- The English Patient's Titanic Atonement.

Director Jarrold and screenwriters Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies make some strange storytelling choices -- the religious discussion elements come across as Catholic bashing.

Best enjoyed by those unfamiliar with Evelyn Waugh’s classic 1945 novel or the seminal 1981 miniseries version, this new Brideshead Revisited is tidy, proper and obvious -- the cinematic equivalent of CliffsNotes.

Brideshead Revisited is a very noble movie, which makes it interesting at times, but not often enough.

Jarrold shows little imagination in his staging. One newly minted plot twist plays like an extravagantly lit outtake from Dawson’s Creek -- not a good comparison.

Screenwriters Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies zero in on the story's religious and real-estate issues more than the still-recalled 1981 miniseries did, but the whole film is ultimately gauzy and unfocused.

The lush big-screen version of Brideshead Revisited is mummified by good taste, swathed in so many layers of posh art direction and somnolent performance that its life force all but flickers out.