Blithe Spirit. (12A.)
Directed by Edward Hall.
Starring Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Emilia Fox and Judi Dench. In cinema and Sky Cinema from January 15th. 94 mins.
Not ten minutes before this started I was thinking to myself how long it's been since I heard anyone being called a "blithering idiot" on screen (or in real life for that matter) and how regrettable that was and then, with perfect serendipity, that's the first line out of Dan Stevens' mouth. So it's got that going for it. After that it's all steadily downhill for this version of Noel Cowards' 1941 play in which the marriage of writer Charles (Stevens) and Ruth Condomine (Fisher) is disrupted when a séance inadvertently beings his late wife Elvira (Mann) back from the afterlife.
Obviously, the first thing one attends to when adapting a play by Coward is getting rid of most of that disagreeable Noel Coward stuff. Even unencumbered with a knowledge of the play, or the David Lean directed 1945 film version, as soon as Charles' penile dysfunction becomes a topic of discussion and his doctor (Rhind-Tutt) prescribes a dose of amphetamine (because it "enhances cheerfulness”) my professional acumen immediately suspected we may have ventured into the realms of the up-dating.
The three screenwriters Piers Ashworth, Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft (they combined previously on Fisherman's Friend) have done a thorough renovation on the old property, chucking out most of the dialogue, rearranging the plot and adding in moments of Rentaghost style slapstick. Yet, having taken all these liberties, they have kept the period setting, which is surely more bother than it's worth.
Coward's dark humour could sit easily in the modern-day. There isn't a single sympathetic character in it and in the Lean film (which I watched straight after to find out what this was supposed to be) their cold-hearted selfishness and cavalier attitude to life and death are quite bracing. They're unpleasant but charismatic. Everybody in this version is an empty-headed ninny, the kind of broad farce characters who shouldn't be exposed to anything more onerous than mistaken identities, hiding in cupboards or dropping trousers.
The British film industry has a craving for these kinds of affectionate desecrations, assembling first-rate casts to tackle classic comedies, and then messing them about till all the fun has been taken out. Oh yes, Mr Wilde and Mr Coward, you may have been quite the wit back then, but the 21st century will wipe the smile off your face.
Directed by Edward Hall.
Starring Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Emilia Fox and Judi Dench. In cinema and Sky Cinema from January 15th. 94 mins.
Not ten minutes before this started I was thinking to myself how long it's been since I heard anyone being called a "blithering idiot" on screen (or in real life for that matter) and how regrettable that was and then, with perfect serendipity, that's the first line out of Dan Stevens' mouth. So it's got that going for it. After that it's all steadily downhill for this version of Noel Cowards' 1941 play in which the marriage of writer Charles (Stevens) and Ruth Condomine (Fisher) is disrupted when a séance inadvertently beings his late wife Elvira (Mann) back from the afterlife.
Obviously, the first thing one attends to when adapting a play by Coward is getting rid of most of that disagreeable Noel Coward stuff. Even unencumbered with a knowledge of the play, or the David Lean directed 1945 film version, as soon as Charles' penile dysfunction becomes a topic of discussion and his doctor (Rhind-Tutt) prescribes a dose of amphetamine (because it "enhances cheerfulness”) my professional acumen immediately suspected we may have ventured into the realms of the up-dating.
The three screenwriters Piers Ashworth, Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft (they combined previously on Fisherman's Friend) have done a thorough renovation on the old property, chucking out most of the dialogue, rearranging the plot and adding in moments of Rentaghost style slapstick. Yet, having taken all these liberties, they have kept the period setting, which is surely more bother than it's worth.
Coward's dark humour could sit easily in the modern-day. There isn't a single sympathetic character in it and in the Lean film (which I watched straight after to find out what this was supposed to be) their cold-hearted selfishness and cavalier attitude to life and death are quite bracing. They're unpleasant but charismatic. Everybody in this version is an empty-headed ninny, the kind of broad farce characters who shouldn't be exposed to anything more onerous than mistaken identities, hiding in cupboards or dropping trousers.
The British film industry has a craving for these kinds of affectionate desecrations, assembling first-rate casts to tackle classic comedies, and then messing them about till all the fun has been taken out. Oh yes, Mr Wilde and Mr Coward, you may have been quite the wit back then, but the 21st century will wipe the smile off your face.
