Movie Review: Brideshead Revisited, Neither a Bride nor Quite Ahead

Make sure to have your tweed garments at the ready as you enter the upper crust world of Brideshead Revisited. It is exactly this entry point that the young protagonist emerges into that milieu, bemused and bewildered. Certainly, Charles Ryder (played ostensibly by Matthew Goode) has ambitions which become a bit more naked as the film unfolds; but that appears to be the single, one note emotion the character displays throughout. Ryder, even in the passionate atmosphere of Venice on holiday, spectacularly is incapable of emoting beyond the representations of class status and social standing. It is not so much that he rails against them; rather, it is the fruitless quest to become cozy within these grand halls of cultured esteem which eludes his meager efforts. The very scantiness of his attempts towards respectability ("I am an artist studying history") are consistently waylaid by his at the beck-and-call nature ("I have friend who is gravely injured.") He cannot quite carry the air of being above it all ("I am an atheist") and quite like a lapdog is ever yapping at the heels of English propriety, even when formally he has been elided from the august personages and sent packing with his tail tucked between his legs. Ryder is a dim-witted escape artist barely competent to avoid the trap of his quondam existence and clearly uncertain as to where he would like stage his next attraction. The consummate realization of ambition lacking drive: he is drawn to Brideshead as a holy grail which will offer him deliverance from the mundane, never recognizing that the mediocrity lies internally and will frustrate his every attempt.

Hayley Atwell as Julia Flyte dovetails nicely with Ryder in that she too is a sterile soul casting airs of superior mien to obfuscate from the viewer the lost little girl who can't live without the restrictions imposed. That she is a coward is revealed early on and grows in fevered pitch as the story accelerates through time. Her anger in Venice, her listless marriage to an American and her flouncing reentry into Ryder's life years later all are paper-thin matryoshkas, concealing the rags belied by the princess-image evocation.

Emma Thompson's impeccable Lady Marchmain is the embodiment of Catholic hauteur, matronly control and sheer domineering bitchiness sveltely encased in white gloves. Edward Ryder, Charles' father (played by Patrick Malahide), is totally devoid of feeling for his son but ardent in his devotion to other pursuits. Ben Whishaw, Lord Sebastian Flyte, is one of the more nuanced, if minor, characters. He oscillates between the carefree sprightliness of gay romanticism, guilt-ridden Catholic child and hopeless addict of alcohol but does so believably. Another gem of a performance steeped with feeling, albeit her moments on screen are few, is handed down by Greta Scacchi as Cara, the Italian mistress of Mr, Marchmain, the estranged husband of Lady Marchmain. It is a tell that the supposedly flatter personalities are by far richly rounder than the principals. Though their elliptical orbit is circumscribed, these lesser beings paint more vibrantly on the canvas that one almost forgets about Charles and Julia. The real love and loss is Sebastian's and his development and saga frame a more interesting tale beside that of the haphazard jerks of Ryder's world. And the one glimmer of expectation at the offset is the ambiguous dance between Lord Flyte and Ryder which hints that Charles might be capable of a relationship with a man.

The movie is a beautiful set of scenes but lacks cohesive ties between the moments of action sufficient to convince that it is a whole and complete product. Waugh's quips and gift for dialog add flair but the directors, in paring away her ample time-line, simultaneously blur the edges of the story. There is no bride in waiting: more like A Rose for Ms. Emily dramatized on the steps of the Old Empire, drawing on the scraps of the miniseries popularized by Jeremy Irons but adding nothing new to the pot and possibly subtracting meaningful human interaction for the prettiness of effect.