The Line Of Beauty on DVD (2006)

Innocence Beguiled

robertconnor from Gloucestershire [Highly rated reviewer] , 09/11/2006

A naive young man falls in with a wealthy Tory MP and his family during the 1980s.

Wonderful adaptation of Hollinghurst's novel, expertly cast. The greed, selfishness, hedonism, ignorance and bigotry that for many sums up the Thatcher era are all on display as Stevens' innocent abroad Nick is drawn in and swept away by the Feddens family. Even as we see Nick become an almost indispensable member of the family, so we know his sweetness and ingenuousness must surely be his undoing... Stevens is brilliant, effortlessly capturing the essence of well-meaning and ingratiating Nick, and he is formidably supported by all concerned, from the key players (McInnerny, Atwell, Krige) to the host of fantastic cameos on display. A must-see for anyone who came-of-age in Thatcher's Britain.

Read all reviews

Disappointing from Andrew Davies

A customer from Forres, Scotland , 15/03/2007

Famous for sexing up the classics, Andrew Davies sexes down The Line of Beauty. There's a sense in this film of sex as an activity related to plumbing which just isn't how sex in Hollinghurt is - even if it's casual and goal-orientated it's still inventive and exciting and transgressive and/or degrading. This does matter because this is a story about seduction, that of a bright middle-class graduate into somewhat debauched/amoral sexual and political milieus. That the whole thing is rather uninvolving might be defended on the grounds that this is rather the point - the subject of the narrative - involvement, detachment, complicity, innocence, seduction and surrender. To what extent is Nick Guest (geddit?), apparently a dispassionate observer of the Thatcher years - an accidental hedonist, a Tory only by association - in fact a protagonist? Playing him as a charming drip, as here, doesn't quite work - there has to be a sense of his (possible) culpability for the terrible rejection that takes place at the end to have any dramatic resonance. All this is meat and drink for a literary novel - less easy to pull off in a TV drama. The intimacy with characters that TV does so well (it has the screen time to do it) is eschewed here - eg, none of Nick's reaction to Leo's sudden ending of their relationship or exploration of his feelings around Wani's refusal to go public with their relationship. This is stuff that is given a weight in the novel by the writing that hasn't found an analogy in the adaptation.

All that said, it's very watchable and I enjoyed the fleeting homages to Brideshead Revisited.

Read all reviews

Loved it

Marie from West Sussex , 22/11/2006

Other reviewers have outlined the plot so I won't repeat it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and sat through the three hours in one go, not wanting it to end.

If ever there was a good example of the saying that 'no good deed goes unpunished', this is it.

Read all reviews

THATCHERISM AT IT'S WORST

A customer from Mike, Leicester UK , 23/09/2006

I found the book to be a difficult read. The film on the other hand came across well. Good performances from Dan & Tim (although still see him as the fool in Blackadder). Dangerous times for gay men with the onset of AIDS.

Read all reviews

Innocence Beguiled

robertconnor from Gloucestershire [Highly rated reviewer] , 09/11/2006

A naive young man falls in with a wealthy Tory MP and his family during the 1980s.

Wonderful adaptation of Hollinghurst's novel, expertly cast. The greed, selfishness, hedonism, ignorance and bigotry that for many sums up the Thatcher era are all on display as Stevens' innocent abroad Nick is drawn in and swept away by the Feddens family. Even as we see Nick become an almost indispensable member of the family, so we know his sweetness and ingenuousness must surely be his undoing... Stevens is brilliant, effortlessly capturing the essence of well-meaning and ingratiating Nick, and he is formidably supported by all concerned, from the key players (McInnerny, Atwell, Krige) to the host of fantastic cameos on display. A must-see for anyone who came-of-age in Thatcher's Britain.

Read all highest rated reviews

Loved it

Marie from West Sussex , 22/11/2006

Other reviewers have outlined the plot so I won't repeat it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and sat through the three hours in one go, not wanting it to end.

If ever there was a good example of the saying that 'no good deed goes unpunished', this is it.

Read all highest rated reviews