Count Lucifer and I had been wanting to watch Easy Virtue for a while now, and we finally did this morning, while getting up to our usual holiday shenanigans. Our initial reactions were:
Ooh Ben Barnes!! (more Count Lucifer's reaction)
Oh Colin!! (ok, more my reaction)
Jessica Biel's face is oddly proportioned...
I want to strangle the mother....
The movie is directed by Stephan Elliot, who also directed Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and he brings some of his cruder humour from Priscilla into Easy Virtue. Jessica Biel plays Larita, a hardcore race car driver from the US, who marries Ben Barnes, the 'prodigal son' of a snobby English family, the Whittakers, whose character's name I just forgot... I think it's John? Josh? Eh something like that.
Anyway, it's a 'Meet the Parents' type movie which is set in the roaring 20s with charming upholstery, the rambling English countryside, large mansions, sparkly jewellrey, very beautiful costumes and that short, wavy gelled hair which I find defies gravity most of the time.....
Larita gets into some sticky situations (involving deaths of dogs, murder cases, hayfever, smoking, Can Can dances without underpants, fox hunts on motocycles... you get the idea) and the mother, Mrs Whittaker (who is played well by Kristin Scott Thomas) can't stand her because she's beautiful and independent, she has been married before and also has the name 'Mrs Whittaker'. SMH's review said that Jessica Biel was "blonde and willowy... and exudes a degree of glamour that is anathema to the Whittakers' tweedy standards of dress and deportment." So true, so true.
Eventually, the Mrs Whittaker drives Larita insane because of their constant bickering. The ending is a sort-of-but-not-really conclusion to the movie, and is apparently the best part of the film, so I won't spoil it.
Colin Firth plays a laconic Mr Whittaker (father of Ben Barnes), whose detached outlook on life, and cynical, dry humour is hilarious (kind of reminiscent of Mr Bennet in P&P).
Jessica's earrings in this outfit are so nice... you can't really see them up close here, but they are totally encrusted with diamonds and probably cost more than my house... Oh wishful thinking...
Eg.
Mrs. Whittaker: Smile, Marion.
Marion Whittaker: I don't feel like smiling.
Mr. Whittaker: You're English dear, fake it.
---
Mrs. Whittaker: You're smiling, Jim.
Mr. Whittaker: Oh God forbid. The wind might change.
Jessica Biel's character is mature, sophisticated and headstrong although she smokes like a chimney. Her costumes are quite masculine, but she is able to pull off wearing those wide legged pants which anyone with an ounce of fat would just look TRAGIC in. She doesn't have convincing chemistry with Ben Barnes, but their overall attractiveness overrides that fact. However, her chemistry with Colin Firth is electric!!! Larita takes an immediate liking to Mr Whittaker just because he doesn't demonise her. While watching this, I secretly wanted them to run off into the sunset together but then thought... EW! Incest! He's her father-in-law!!!!!
This is from the 'tango' scene where we definately know that there is electrifying chemistry between Firth and Biel... gives you a kind of strange feeling of delight but strangeness...Ben Barnes is a bit of a cad, even if he is nice to look at. He's naive and swept away by how glamorous Larita is, and doesn't really have any sense of responsibility as a husband or son.
And the mother... oh the mother. Where to start? She's got a misguided sense of "moral responsibility" over the family which can compensate for Ben Barnes's lack thereof, which is SO ANNOYING and forces her to intefere all the time! You love to hate her... or hate to love her? Both I think. It's just that she acts quite well in the movie, and you want to wring her neck but you think, 'you're acting is so good as the disgruntled mother-in-law', even if she does wear hairy cardigans.
Overall, it's pretty good. Funny dialogue, visually flamboyant in a way, not-too-bad acting and an unexpectedly satisfying ending (which makes you think: YEA! STICK IT TO THE [WO]MAN!) make it range from a 7-8 out of 10.
I'd say watch it if you're in the mood for a holiday-friendly, enjoyable romp! (ROMP! That's the first and last time I'll use that word)
~ Hurley Who?
4 comments:
Great review, Hurley! I must say, I wasn't going to see this, but you might have changed my vote. Will keep you posted!
my god colin firth is turning into mr bennet from lost in austen - can't remember his name - oh hugh bonneville - you know this spells MID LIFE QRISIS with a capital Q. You have a nifty review style - mildly sarcastic but still makes you want to believe that the film is thoroughly enjoyable. I wouldn't mind watching it, but something about B.B makes me feel like I'm watching a cardboard box trying to act. CL will no doubt have me quartered for that BUT I STICK TO MY BELIEFS.
my 'nifty review style' is quite coveted..... the reality is shamefully anti-climatic though... it's basically a jumble of mutually shared ideas with CL put under roughly signposted headings which come to me in moments of inspiration, like Coleridge writing Kubla Khan in opium-induced ecstasy
ben barnes!
that is my contribution.
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