Brideshead Revisited Reviews

[Highly rated reviewer]

Wanting More?

I like period dramas and am always amazed by how directors can take today's world and transport it back in time for a film. The cars, clothes, boats, and especially the building interiors in the film are perfect. I am an avid cyclist and was delighted with all the old roadster bikes that were found to cycle around Oxford. 5 out of 5 for scenery.

The characters are interesting. I haven't seen any of the tv show and was very surprised to find that one of the main actors was so queeny gay. I thought that England at the time would have been too conservative for such a character, but a friend explained that the sexual references were not so bold in the series, and that most of it was implied but never seen.

The story is strong. The beginning is a bit rushed with flash-forwards and backwards; from the present in the army, to the near past in an art exhibition, then to 10 years previous starting college, all in a matter of minutes. After that though, the scenes settle down, and there is only a moderate amount of rushedness (college takes around 15 minutes ... i wish).

When the film relaxes into the main body of the story, it is fantastic. The arrival of Emma Thompson as the overly-devoted religious mother, for me, is where the film takes off. She is wonderful at portraying the confusion of a woman who throws herself firmly into her beliefs, fleetingly trying to grasp why this is not creating the perfect life for her family, but otherwise unaware that she is forcing so much religious guilt from Catholic over-expectations on her children that they are all buckling under the pressure. Couple that with the hypocrisy of her being a divorcee with a husband living a life of adulterous sin in Venice, whom the children adore, and you have the confused and twisted setting for the family.

I'll finish there as I don't want to include any spoilers, but suffice to say, it's worth a watch. I watched it with my Mom, who loved it (and even managed to stay awake for the whole thing ... a rare occurence) and my boyfriend who also enjoyed it, but probably thought there weren't enough ninjas.

4 out of 5 is a bit harsh as I thought it was wonderful, but the film got so close to perfection in the exploration of the strife of a confusing Catholic family environment, and then shied away from really thumping through to a magnificent conclusion, that I can't give the full 5.

Rather Dull and still felt overlong

I know we all compare this to the much loved tv series which was not exactly a barrel of laughs but this film really was very dull and felt extremely long. It felt longer than the tv series and a story so complex and deep would have great trouble being made into a movie in the first place. All the actors were brilliant, especially Matthew Goode who continues to interest me (he still reminds me of Rupert Everett) but I did look forward to this movie very much and it did drag on. The exquisite settings did not enliven the film and I just think it was sadly very dull.

Not as good as the the last version

This was beautifully filmed and touched on a different aspect of the story to the previous version, but I still preferred the Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews adaptation.

In this film, the chemistry between the main characters was lacking and therefore the whole film seemed a little flat.

So much of the story relies on the troubled relationship between Sebastian, his family and his catholic guilt about being gay and unfortunately the actor playing Sebastian in this film gave a rather flat, one dimensional and very wimpy performance rather than showing himself as tortured and charasmatic.

Emma Thompson's performance was very good and without her the film would have failed completely I think.

Still worth watching for the cinematography alone.

Was ok, not excellent.

Loved the film not the best but entertaining.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Mildly Entertaining

This should really be watched on those Sunday afternoon when you need to defrag your hard drive.

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A beautiful film in itself

If, like me, you have seen the TV series, you would probably be wondering why anyone would attempt to follow it with a film. The TV series was perfect in my opinion and is an extremely hard act to follow. That said, this film is beautifully shot and acted with haunting music that cannot fail to move the watcher. The story, due to time, is condensed down, yet it still manages to capture the dominant themes of religion, love and the class system. Charles Ryder is drawn to a dysfunctional upper class family through his intrigue for Sebastian and later by his love for Sebastians sister Julia, however the consequences of this does not lead to happiness for anyone. The characters are drawn to each other, however, their strong differences mean that they can not stay together. An enjoyable film, but check out the TV series too if you have not already seen it :)

so disappointing

I knew that the film would need to be more condensed than the TV series but I was amazed at how much was missing from the story. The actors didn't seem to represent the characters and Sebastian was not portrayed very well at all.

For me it was disappointing and I wish they had left things alone. However, if this was your first view of Brideshead you would probably enjoy the story and cinematography aas it did look very nice.

Really slow

Expected alot more from this movie. Watched it over the course of 3 nights as I was so bored.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Not bad

At first (with fond memories of the TV series in mind) I could not see how they could do justice to the story in a film. However I was keen to watch the film as I admire most of the actors taking part. Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon are two favourites of mine who cant put a foot wrong, whilst Ben Whilshaw is an up and coming actor who has not disappointed me yet, and Hayley Atwell acted Keira Knightley off the screen in 'The Duchess'. On its own, the film is not bad but it is in the shadow of the orginal TV series. I would recommend the film without hestitation as it was beautifully filmed and the actors do a brill job. PS: if you want to know the whole story then I think it is best to read the book.

Brideshead Revisited

Quite slow going, not unlike the book. Bit depressing really. Well acted though and beautifull locations.