What Do The Critics Say?

"It's a rich, satisfying journey with top-notch performances - especially Thompson as the Catholic control freak - even if Whishaw, who looks like he was dressed by Ronnie Barker, over-eggs the grand campery. Purists may baulk at Jarrold's liberties with the text but it's a well-constructed story that works on many levels. If you enjoyed the book or the series, revisit Brideshead." Tim Evans SKY MOVIES "The film is plush and passionate and graced with elegant performances. Best is that of Emma Thompson as Brideshead's matriarch, Lady Marchmain, who resembles a cross between Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Benedict." Carrie Rickey PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER "A sophisticated and well-acted screen version of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel about the toxic fallout from a Catholicism of sin, sacrifice, guilt, and otherworldliness." Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat SPIRITUALITY & PRACTICE "the fascination is never lost of observing a class in a society who, despite their wealth and privilege, are driven by the same emotions, fears and guilt feelings common to all humans." Stan James ADELAIDE NOW "The film version of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited transforms one of the quintessential novels of the 20th century into one of the grandest, most enriching films of 2008." Rex Reed NEW YORK OBSERVER "This is that rare film version of a book that captures the essence of the work, while at the same time bringing its own point of view to the table. Personally, I find the approach more interesting. The screenplay by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies reproduces the book’s story line and themes, while shrewdly condensing the events in a way that, for my money, improves on its structure." Ken Hanke MOUNTAIN XPRESS

"The Waugh estate supposedly approved this truncated version, handsomely directed by Julian Jarrold and smartly written by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock. Praise to actor Goode as well. It takes equal doses of nerve and talent to reinvent a classic: kudos to the filmmakers for the extraordinary end result. They say money can't buy happiness. But in this case, it purchases one exquisite jewel of a film." Kimberly Gadette LIVE PDX "On the plus side the film looks very handsome and most of the acting is as good as you’d expect, especially Emma Thompson, whose steely demeanour makes her the sort of woman you’d never want to get on the wrong side of." David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES "If you enjoy good drama and magnificent cinematography, you can't go wrong with this movie." Gerald Wright HDFest "Matthew Goode is well cast as Ryder, lending him just the right blend of pragmatism, intelligence and charm. Thompson turns in a scene-stealing performance as Lady Marchmain." Vicky Roach DAILY TELEGRAPH "The fine cast includes Emma Thompson as the siblings' gracious but domineering mother, and the location footage of the family's majestic mansion is stunning." Albert Williams CHICAGO READER "As the tale is told mostly in flashback, it is imbued with a longing for that pre-lapsarian world before love is betrayed and where the practice of elegant imbibing is yet to turn into sad alcoholism. The look and feel is just about right, and the dialogue and acting are enjoyably sharp. This new version of the classic deserves a fair hearing in its own right." Julian Wood FILMINK

Brideshead Revisited - The Evelyn Waugh Book Evelyn Waugh (October 28th 1903 – April 10th 1966) wrote "Brideshead Revisited" in just four months whilst on leave from the army during the latter stages of the Second World War in 1944. Completed as the Allied forces were landing in Normandy, the book was published to widespread acclaim and no small amount of controversy in 1945. Waugh was writing what he has called his ‘magnum opus’, about the decline of the English Catholic aristocracy. It was during the war: a period of uncertainty and almost certain change, which Waugh believed would pave the way for the rise of the common man and the end of the gentry and with it, a rich and glorious era. Brideshead Revisited was epic in scope, set across several continents and three decades from the 1920s to the 1940s. Its theme, as described by the author, is 'the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters.' The novel includes some autobiographical detail, Waugh converted to Catholicism in 1930; he also encouraged a friend to convert on his deathbed. He enjoyed life as an undergraduate at Oxford, drinking too much and mixing with people from grander colleges than his own (Hertford) as well as experiencing at least one homosexual relationship. His Oxford contemporaries included Graham Greene, Anthony Powell and John Betjeman and when Waugh later wrote Brideshead Revisited, it was during a celebrated period in English literature which included the publication of Betjeman’s "New Bats in the Old Belfries", Orwell’s "Animal Farm" and Dylan Thomas’s "Deaths and Entrances". Brideshead Revisited is possibly the best known and most celebrated of Waugh’s thirteen novels and is considered to be a classic of 20th century literature. It features in the list of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Novels. Waugh's conversion to Catholicism came after the failure of his first marriage in 1930. After his first marriage was annulled by the Church, he married Laura Herbert, a Catholic, daughter of British diplomat, traveller and intelligence officer, Aubrey Herbert. The Inside Story When Ecosse Films producers looked at the novel with a view to adapting "Brideshead Revisited" into a screenplay, they were surprised and excited to discover that the novel had never been made into a feature film. "We were going through a list of classic novels which had never been made into films and Brideshead came up," says producer Robert Bernstein ("Charlotte Gray"). "I was astonished to discover that it was available and we jumped at it." Waugh himself had granted MGM an option to develop a screenplay in the 1950s, but he hadn’t liked the script. Producer Kevin Loader ("My Night With Reg" & "The History Boys") explained: "I think they were keen to take out the religious elements, and the subject of Julia having an affair was a very difficult one for the Hollywood of that time." Since then, the Waugh Estate had received various enquiries regarding the film rights but had held onto them. "The Estate is quite protective," notes Loader ("Captain Corelli's Mandolin"). "They saw an early draft of the script and were keen that some of the religious scenes in the novel didn’t get completely watered down, but they have been very supportive." Bernstein ("The Water Horse") and Douglas Rae ("The Water Horse") of Ecosse Films brought in the five time BAFTA TV award winning screenwriter Andrew Davies ("Pride and Prejudice") to develop the script, before turning to another acclaimed screenwriter, Three time BAFTA winner Jeremy Brock (Alexander Korda Best Picture & Best Screenplay Awards for "The Last King Of Scotland"; BAFTA Scotland Award Best Screenplay for "The Last King of Scotland") to pick up the baton. "Different writers bring different values to a project and I felt at a certain point that Jeremy, whom I’d worked with on two other films ("Charlotte Gray" & "Mrs Brown") was the right person to take it to the next stage," says Bernstein. Jeremy Brock was initially unsure what he could bring to the script, and wanted to get back to the source material. After re-reading the book, he felt exhilarated. "I thought it was one of the best books in the English languages. It’s a tremendous piece of writing and one of the big challenges for the screenwriter is not only to find a way of compressing the story to fit within a film’s timeframe, but to find the film equivalent for prose poetry which this book contains in abundance. It is some of the most beautiful prose you will ever read and that gives the book a personality which the film has to find the equivalent of." The complexity and scope of the story itself also appealed to Jeremy Brock but in order to condense such an immense story into a film, he needed to find a clear line through the text. "It’s a love story but a complex, subtle, grown-up love story about the pursuit of beauty and about faith, passion and guilt. The essence of it, for me, is the very singular love story between Charles, the outsider, and two incredibly vivid young people: beautiful, tortured, wonderful people, Julia and Sebastian, that he falls in love with. That gives this epic its originality," Brock adds. "It’s how you then spin the rest of the narrative around that love story that becomes the challenge." The modern parallels and universality of the story intrigued Loader. Brought onto the project by Ecosse in 2006, Loader notes, "Jeremy had just completed a rewrite and it had transformed the script. It’s a wonderfully grown-up classic novel and a book of its time to an extent, but I think, consciously or subconsciously, we have tried to do something which would resonate now." "I think what the story also contains is a very interesting portrait of parental influence on children, religious upbringing on children and a historical snapshot of a moment in English Catholic aristocracy between the wars. But most importantly, it is about one man’s inter-relationship with two members of one family, both of whom he falls in love with," Loader says. Many readers are probably wondering if this is a remake or rebirthing of the acclaimed TV series which ran for eleven espisodes and starred 1991 and 2007 Golden Globe winner Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder and, 1953 and 1986 BAFTA TV awardClaire Bloom as Lady Marchmain. "I deliberately haven’t watched the TV series, as I thought I’d either end up copying it or reacting against it, and I’d prefer to react to the script and read the book and identify the things which were crucial to me about those two things for the film," director Julian Jarrold ("Kinky Boots") revealed. As a novel "Brideshead Revisited" has a very rigid three-part structure, each section addressing different parts of Charles Ryder’s life. To create a fluid, dramatic screenplay, some reconstruction was necessary. Jarrold explained: "In the book, Waugh deals with Sebastian, then stops and deals with Julia: there is barely any overlap. For the film, it is much more interesting dramatically to have the two coinciding." Writer Brook also brought one major additional deviation from the book to the screenplay. "We’ve taken a few liberties with the plotting to serve our story, and what Jeremy did was to put Julia in the Venice sequence of the novel, so when Charles and Sebastian go to visit Lord Marchmain and his mistress Cara in Venice, Julia goes with them on the trip, which is different to the book. It became the pivot of the story for us," Loader stated. "By taking Julia away from Brideshead, she can feel a bit freer, let her hair down. At the Carnivale, she sees people cavorting and it opens her up, sexually and emotionally, as it does Charles. That allows them to become entwined romantically which then disrupts Charles’s relationship with Sebastian, almost breaking Sebastian," says Jarrod. When dealing with the Waugh Estate, the filmmakers had been open about their intention to put more of a focus on the relationship between Charles and Julia than the TV adaptation had done, to which the Estate had no objection. Loader says, "They were happy about that and did see an early draft. They were most keen that we didn’t completely water down some of the religious scenes and I don’t think we have. Julia’s choice at the end of the film is still one between earthly values and spiritual values." One of main appeals to the producers and the director was not just that the film is adapted from a literary masterpiece, but also that it is a British classic. They were excited that a British production team would finally bring Brideshead to the big screen. With primarily British funding and tremendous support from their financiers: BBC Films, 2 entertain, the UK Film Council’s Premiere and Development Funds, Screen Yorkshire, Hanway Films and US Indie, Miramax Films; the producers and director Julian Jarrold were committed to casting home-grown talent to ensure that Brideshead remained a truly British production. The three central characters, Charles, Sebastian and Julia, are all in their late teens and early twenties when we first meet them Charles and Sebastian are students at Oxford University. The filmmakers were keen to cast actors of similar ages to mirror the youth and vitality of the characters. Matthew Goode ("Matchpoint" & "The Lookout") was cast in the lead role of Charles Ryder. "I think for the part of Charles, you need to be a good back-footed and front-footed player and Matthew does that extremely well," says Loader. "He’s passionate when he needs to be passionate, playful when he has to be playful and slightly mysterious when he has to be more opaque and that’s hard to do." "When I first read the script, I found it quite hard to love Charles," says Goode. "I think he can be quite selfish and weak at times but then you look at his upbringing. When you see he had no love from his father, and no motherly influence, it gives you an understanding of this guy. He’s very messed up." 2008 Robert Altman Award winner Ben Whishaw (I'm Not There") was cast as Sebastian Flyte. "I’d seen him in Perfume and I knew he was a brilliant actor. Sebastian is a very difficult part because you can easily overplay the feminine elements of his character, and make him too 'camp' but Ben is a superb actor and has a very gentle, beguiling quality which shone out early on," says Jarrold. Whishaw says he "was really thrilled to be involved in it. I think it’s a beautiful story and will really benefit from being distilled into a two-hour film. I was also very excited to get the chance to work with some wonderful people, particularly Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon." Rising star Hayley Atwell ("The Duchess") was cast as Sebastian's sister Julia Flyte. "She’s astonishing," an enthusiastic Loader notes. "She has to play both ends of the scale of Julia. As the young Julia she is a bit wayward and disconcerting but very intriguing, and then as the slightly older Julia, you can see the toll taken by her struggle with her religious roots: her sense of guilt, and it’s very hard to get right." Director Jarrold felt that in Hayley he had found a unique Julia Flyte. "I’d seen her in the television drama, 'The Line of Beauty' and thought she was a really exciting talent, but she wasn’t an obvious choice for Julia." Whishaw revealed, "I’ve just completely fallen in love with Hayley. She’s also very sexy, as a person and in her performance as Julia." Atwell was familiar with the novel "Brideshead Revisited" and loved Brock’s script. "I think there is something in it for everyone," she says. "It works on many different levels and can be very thought-provoking and very sexy at times." With the three young leads in place, Julian Jarrold and the producers then complemented them with well-known stars including: two time Oscar ® winner Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain; four time BAFTA TV Award winner Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain and, 2000 AFI Award winner Greta Scacchi ("Looking for Alibrandi") as Cara, Lord Marchmain’s Italian mistress. Goode, like Wishaw is a fan of Gambon. "Michael is actually one of the reasons I went into acting. I saw him perform Uncle Vanya when I was seventeen and I thought he was great and that I’d love to be able to do that." "Emma is a huge asset to the film," Loader comments. "I think people will be surprised by the casting, as they are not used to seeing her play stern matriarchs." Thompson was familiar with the book but hadn't seen the British TV adaptation. "I was away in Australia at the time doing Footlights and missed it and I’ve made a point of not watching it so that I didn’t get put off." "I think one of the reasons an audience will find this film fresh is the casting. I think the three central characters have been brilliantly and intuitively cast. They’re young and that sweetness and raw passion of youth leaps out so you just feel drawn to them and pulled along by them," says Brook. Like the TV series "Brideshead Revisited" too was shot on location at Castle Howard. Original Photgraphs Of Castle Howard © 2008 Fred Gordon - All Rights Reserved Synopsis

Brideshead Revisited is a poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to the Second World War, a period when the landed gentry began to lose some of its many privileges. The story begins in 1925 at Oxford where Charles Ryder is befriended by the louche and flamboyant Sebastian Flyte, son of Lord and Lady Marchmain. Charles is quickly seduced by his friend’s opulent and glamorous world and thrilled by an invitation to 'Brideshead', the Marchmain’s magnificent ancestral home. Beguiled by his surroundings, Charles becomes infatuated with Sebastian’s sister, Julia. As his emotional attachment to the young Marchmains grows, Charles finds himself increasingly at odds with the family’s strongest bond: a deep and abiding Catholic faith. Later, during World War II, Charles is billeted back at 'Brideshead' which has been requisitioned as an army base. Wandering the grounds, he recalls his turbulent, passionate history with the Marchmain family and his two lost loves.

The Verdict "Some cinemagoers, whose minds are clouded by memories of the acclaimed 1981 TV series (which starred two now deceased Oscar ® winner and knights of the realm: Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud) will have to put aside their 'pride and prejudice' if they want to get the best out of this big-screen version of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited". Screen Writers Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock have done a super job with the screenplay, adapting Waugh's work into a very interesting storyline. As you would expect, the film is a feast for the eyes with stunning locations and rich views, none of which is more stunning than Castle Howard with its magnificent fountain, which was in the Great Exhibition of 1850 before Nesfield brought it to Castle Howard (which stands in for "Brideshead", the ancestral home of the Marchmain family). The filmmakers have, to their credit, brought together a smashing cast that has no weeknesses. Emma Thompson, who evidently "took the younger actors under her wing", inviting them to her house for dinner and taking the group on outings, to church and, out to dinner so they could bond as a 'family'. Thompson gives a strong performance as the matriarchal Lady Marchmain. Once again, as she did in "The Duchess", Hayley Atwell shines. It's hard to find anything disparaging to say about this smashing film. Highly satisfying and as such, highly recommendable. SOLID 4 STARS." Crew Bytes "BRIDESHEAD REVISITED" was .......
directed by Julian Jarrold [TV'S "Great Expectations", "All the King's Men" and "Crime and Punishment"]; set decoration by Caroline Smith ["Love Actually", "Notes On A Scandal" and "The Kite Runner"]; supervising art director 2002 Royal Television Society Television Award Lynne Huitson ["Nanny McPhee", "Last King Of Scotland" and "Death at a Funeral"]; costume design by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh ["Mad About Mambo", "Breakfast on Pluto" and "The Wind That Shakes the Barley"]; production design by 1998 BAFTA TV Award winner Alice Normington ["Very Annie Mary", "Proof" and "And When Did You Last See Your Father?"]; edited by Chris Gill ["28 Days Later", "Millions", "Sunshine" and "28 Weeks Later"]; director of photography Jess Hall ["Tales from the Reading Room", "Son Of Rambow" and "Hot Fuzz"]; original music by Adrian Johnston [TV'S "Shackleton", "Crime and Punishment" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge"]. Who's Who

Matthew Goode Emma Thompson Hayley Atwell Ben Whishaw Michael Gambon Greta Scacchi Felicity Jones Ed Stoppard Patrick Malahide Thomas Morrison Anna Madeley Richard Teverson Niall Buggy Stephen Carlile Peter Barnes Joseph Beattie Roger Walker Rita Davies Geoffrey Wilkinson James Bradshaw Jonathan Cake Tom Wlaschiha Stephane Cornicard Susan Brown

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Charles Ryder Lady Marchmain Julia Flyte Sebastian Flyte Lord Marchmain Cara Lady Cordelia Flyte Bridley Flyte Edward Ryder Hooper Celia Ryder Cousin Jasper Father Mackay English Lord American Professor Anthony Blanche Lunt Nanny Hawkins Wilcox Mr Samgrass Rex Mottram Kurt Doctor Henri Nurse

Run Time 133 minutes Rated PG [AUST] Copyright ©2008 - Icon Film Distribution - All Rights Reserved ©2008 All Rights Reserved - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - Protected by Australian, International, Copyright & Trademark Laws.