Brideshead Revisited
As works of consumption, books and films occupy different strata of our consciousness. Novels are richer and more in-depth while films can convey thoughts or feelings through music or even a single image. To compare movies based on books to their source is folly to a degree, as their inherent differences in scope are so great. We can’t help it of course. Seeing our mind-play translated into someone else’s version is sometimes jarring (Great Expectations) and sometimes sublime (Sense & Sensibility). I will say this: I enjoyed nearly as much of the film Brideshead Revisited as I was displeased with the novel. (Full disclosure: as of writing this I am on page 207 of 351 pages; when I saw the film I was around 155-160. The remaining book details have been shared with me by Waugh fans.) The intervening pages took over a week to labor through.
Brideshead the film is typically gorgeous as classy as one expects a British art-house film to be. The actors, save Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon, are semi-unfamiliar. The late 1920′s society they portray is exotically distant (servants even for poor undergraduates?) and romantic. The events in the film felt rushed (as filmed novels can) and overly obvious compared to how they seem to be unfolding in the novel, as if Harry Potter’s adopted parents already dressed him in an “Ask me about wizardry” t-shirt before Hagrid ever turned up. Turns out the plot elements are mostly inaccurate and made up as well. Too bad I enjoyed most of the made-up ones.
That said, I appreciated the dispensation of the pages and pages of tedium to enable me to suss out the themes which were relevant. Having them in my pocket when I resumed reading after the film is the only thing keeping me reading. I do want to read this movie I just saw, but Evelyn Waugh is keeping the deliciousness away from me.
Our lead Charles (Matthew Goode) falls in with a family with a strict Catholic mother (Thompson) and a troubled (read: gay, alcoholic) son Sebastian (Ben Whishaw). They are occasionally graced by an aimless (I have no other adjective, since she is so underused in both works) daughter Julia (Hayley Atwell). An older brother, played by Ed Stoppard, is a fabulously great little diversion of a character. Of course, the family’s immense and impressive house, Brideshead (played by Castle Howard in North Yorkshire) is a character too – one that is paraded out, draped in explanations of fierce sentiment, and abandoned.
The themes of religious oppression and expectation creating misery, the mishandling of young love feelings and camaraderies, of the iron-tight influences of the virtual parent inside your head, these are all great and fascinating ideas. I want to see Sebastian’s decline into besottedness (both sorts), the tension between Julia and Charles and Rex, and the pendulous Catholic influence. Where the book tells but does not show, the film shows just a taste, completing what lacks in the book but not creating its own world for the non-reader. I am barely making sense here. The film is linear, clear (though skips a lot and forgets to resolve even more, as well as making up stuff), and enjoyable to watch. The book is all texture with no base, character with no arc, and arch dialogue with no end purpose. They are separate and different but entirely codependent on each other – as the film veered out of the pages I had covered, I found it markedly more difficult to justify the characters’ behaviors. It may be a well-assembled work of cinematic craft, but I can’t recommend either for a pleasurable use of your hard-earned money.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 7/25/08
Time in minutes 134
Director Julian Jerrold
Studio Miramax
