CINEMA: Brideshead Revisited

Although Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel of privilege, Catholicism and forbidden loves has never made it to the big screen before, it did become an iconic TV series in the 1980s starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. So, this film adaptation has a lot to live up to, and even though it doesn’t have the space or timeframe to minutely paint in detail (as the 11 episodes of the series did), there is a sense of faded grandeur and inevitability about proceedings that speak of a time, lifestyle and social structure now long gone and almost forgotten.

The story proper begins in 1925 when young, impressionable and firmly middle class Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) goes up to Oxford and immediately falls in with the ‘wrong’ crowd. This is basically the social circle of immensely wealthy and effete Sebastian Flyte (Ben Wishaw), whose staunchly Catholic family owns the beautiful country pile Brideshead (shot at Castle Howard). Soon, Charles and Sebastian are as thick as thieves, much to the displeasure of Sebastian’s mother Lady Marchmain (a towering performance by Emma Thompson). But while the homosexual Sebastian holds an unrequited flame for Charles, Charles is drawn to Sebastian’s beautiful and wilful sister Julia (Hayley Atwell) and longs to be part of the Marchmain family, its social circle and its lifestyle. In the end it won’t be Charles’ own social background that thwarts his ambitions, but the family’s loyalty to the Catholic faith.

Not surprisingly the film looks magnificent, with its opulent settings speaking of old money and inherited heirlooms. The screenplay is very true to the book with some scenes seemingly lifted wholesale from the page, while both leads bring an authenticity to their roles; Goode quietly determined as ambitious Charles, and Wishaw utterly vulnerable as tragic Sebastian.

For many people this film will never live up to the legacy of the TV series, but if you haven’t seen that version then this is a luscious, lavish, well-crafted film accurately chronicling a specific period and social strata in British history.      Dee Pilgrim