Brideshead Revisited (2008)

I finally saw the 2008 film tonight. I knew ahead of time that it would be awful so I cannot say I was let down. I got exactly what I expected. It was oddly amusing to watch the poor actors who obviously had no idea what they were getting into. The script seems to have been rewritten during production and they often have the facial expression of someone who has gone in for an eye test only to have the doctor suddenly start conducting a rectal exam . They aren't sure this is quite right but their respect for the medical profession is such that they have decided to go along with it.

The thing starts rather boldly and whether you love or hate the premise, you do have to admire the presumption. Some film adaptions fail beacuse makers obviously misunderstand the novel they are adapting. Brideshead Revisited was made by people who understood the novel very well and set out to subvert it.

The opening shot is of Charles Ryder (we know it's him because he is trying as hard as he can to be Jeremy Irons) walking through Castle Howard. He is in uniform and we hear his thoughts in voice over:

If you asked me now, who I am. The only answer I could give with any certainty would me my name, Charles Ryder. For the rest—my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires—I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be. On second thoughts, one emotion remains my own, alone among the borrowed, the second hand, as pure as that faith from which I am still in flight.

Anyone who knows the novel, will know that the correct "emotion" for him to identify at this point is love.

Charles doesn't say love, however, he says "guilt!' And yes, the exclamation point is in the original. You can't see it but you can hear it. It's like seeing a remake of Lolita in which it is revealed that Dolores is a twenty-five year old woman in the opening scene. You can't be quite see how this is going to work with that crucial detail altered. Neither could the film makers and they ended up having to invent an entirely new plot to try and make sense of it. And they still fail.

Ben Whishaw plays Sebastian. First as a simpering wimp you just want to slap who slowly transforms into a religious mystic. Through some weird bit of time travel, he seems to have got AIDS as well. No, it's not actually mentioned that he does but he sure looks like it.

He is very sad—not tragic or angry. Waugh would never do that. Gay men in Waugh are always gay. He complained in a letter to Nancy Mitford that Americans insisted on treating homosexuality as a kind of severe depression. So do our film makers.

They also can't decide whether Sebastian's life is ruined by Catholic guilt (which is apparently very different from every other kind of guilt) or by jealousy because he sees Charles kiss his sister while the three of them are in Venice together. Readers of the novel will remember that scene. It happens just before Pierre, Natty Bumpo and the Constance Money burn Moscow to the ground to keep Napoleon from getting it.

It must be quite a kiss because poor Julia breaks off in the middle of it and rushes to the nearest chapel where she lights a candle and then starts breathing hard every time she so much as sees Charles for the rest of the film. She is played by Hayley Atwell who has very lovely, natural looking body without any of the freakishness typical of female movie actresses. I mention this because aside from that and her ability to fake sexual arousal, she has no positive qualities as an actress whatsoever. Her acting in this movie suggests that she cares less about the part she is playing than in getting bits on film that will establish her bona fides for a future career in porn.

Okay, if you are still with me, this is where it gets really weird. Toward the end of the film, its makers chicken out entirely. Anthony Blanche, a major character in the novel but almost nonexistent here, shows up for his second speaking part. He says to Charles, "I thought you were the lamb for the slaughter but I see now that they are." He doesn't make this observation based on anything that happens on screen so he must be referring to the script meeting where the director just explained that they are going to change the entire direction of the movie for no reason.

Well, not for no reason. I suspect someone told them that taking Charles' religious awakening out of Brideshead would be a like a remake of Titanic without the ship: no one would come. They'd had the market research people poll prospective audiences and discovered that the millions of people who've read and reread the book and the millions who had seen the 1981 miniseries wouldn't pay to be insulted.

So they gave it an ambiguous ending. Charles walks into the chapel. He dips his hand in the stoup but does not cross himself. He walks up towards the altar and stops and looks at a staue of Mary and the Christ child and then reaches with his wet fingers to snuff the flame of a nearby candle. But he can't quite bring himself to do it, and he leaves. He walks out into the light. Yup, into the light which suddenly goes all bright and ethereal in case we're so stupid we can't quite catch the metaphor. And then it's over.

The intention is obviously to have it both ways. If you want to believe Charles is converted at the last second, you can believe it. But you couldn't quite convict the filmmakers of having made it absolutely clear.

Oh yes, two other really weird touches. I think some of the cast must have rented the 1981 series because you can see it in their performances. Ed Stoppard, who playes Bridey, must have intended to do so but his local video store's copy must have been out. He rented Room With a View instead on the theory that these things are all more or less the same and he plays Bridey as Cecil Vyse. Jonathan Cake, who plays Rex Mottram had a similar problem and he rented Ocean's Eleven instead and plays Rex as Terry Benedict. They even play a scene where Rex convinces Charles to buy Julia only it plays the opposite way from Ocean's Eleven and it is Charles who is revealed to be the really crass one who sees Julia as nothing but a piece of highly desirable real estate. (No I am not making this up; in this movie Charles buys Julia from Rex for two paintings.)

That is not completely alien to the novel as readers will know, Charles does see Julia as a bit of property he seeks ownership of; but it is completely false to Charles character to do anything crass no matter how crass his actual motives are. He is unfailingly charming and, as Anthony Blanche makes him realize in the novel, his problem is that all he has is charming manners. That is less of a problem in this movie as Charles as played by Matthew Goode has about as much character as a a pile of cordwood. He does, however do a very good job of looking like Jeremy Irons standing still.

Final rating: so bad it's sort of fun in an odd way.