..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Brideshead
Revisited
Directed by Julian Jarrold

There's always seemed to be a bond between Brideshead Revisited and The Great Gatsby. Both novels unravel at least in part during the same era and largely focus on the privileged societies of England and America. But more to the point they struggle to put the pin in the lofty realms and the tragedy inherent for those who aspire to enter the hallowed halls.

Gatsby was given the full Hollywood treatment in 1974 though an earlier screen version with Alan Ladd in the title role more propitiously tackled the gist of the drama. Similarly Brideshead had previously been given a painstaking translation as an 11-hour TV series and has now been condensed into a conventional movie size.

It's mere coincidence that the time between each of these incarnations is 27 years. What they share more honestly is an attention to detail that is so visually striking, precise and significant to their respective filmmakers that it literally interferes with the story. Gatsby stumbled irreparably from the distraction and the new Brideshead Revisited also dallies too often in the opulent eye candy of the era. Yet ultimately the intrinsic power and emotional observation of Evelyn Waugh's novel packs a wallop that cannot be denied.

The saga centers on Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), solidly middle class but of striking ambition that finds him a place at Oxford. If his family hoped the environment would dissuade him from a pursuit of the arts they were sorely misinformed. His better heeled fellows are a rudderless lot, secure in the fortunes of kin and positions that will surely be provided within their rarified social network.

Whether the attraction is purely physical or augmented by his "otherness," Charles is pursued by the titled Sebastian Flyte (Ben Wishaw) - himself an oddity whose family embraces the Papist faith. Sebastian is the poster child of ambivalence with uneasy attitudes that extends across religion, sexuality and the constraints of an entrenched class system.

In a fashion both men see the other as a conduit to another, more idealized place though neither is overtly manipulative or mercenary. There are suggestions that Charles is an arriviste but he's more likely to be undone by guile rather than strategy. He is clearly out of his element as he gushes that Brideshead (the Flyte bucolic manor) is "the most beautiful place" he has ever seen and that innate feckless quality is readily exploited by the family's stern matriarch Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson).

He falls under the spell of Julia (Hayley Atwell) but his advances cannot surmount the ruthless intent of an American rival who better understands the terrain and stakes. And throughout it all he's riddled with guilt in a fashion that puts with under the thrall of Catholicism in a more telling fashion than those raised under its veil.

Director Julian Jarrold seems to believe that given the charged circumstances, little more than focusing on the apparel and furnishing is required. His camera lingers and obsesses on accoutrements as if bored by the passions of the flesh and blood inhabitants of this antiquated realm. Thankfully the performers will have no truck with his bias and collectively comprise a viper's nest from which its protagonist will not emerge unbitten.

Brideshead Revisited's enduring appeal is not simply its surface sheen, despite the filmmaker's harkening to its siren call. There are tortured lives striving to make sense of a world of comfort unquestionably crumbling beyond the front gate. The masses are embracing the promise of new religions of fascism and collectivism and shaking off the feudal state and there will be collateral damage both literally and figuratively for those too headstrong to confront the obvious. Waugh's delineation of a future that belongs to the strong continues to resonate above all artiface.

- Leonard Klady

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