Easy Virtue

This makes the 1100th post on this blog. Doesn't seem that long since I was looking at a 1000.

Anyway, went to see Easy Virtue tonight, after having had it recommended by one of my work colleagues today. I don't know enough about Noel Coward's original play to work out what belongs to the original script and what doesn't, but certainly there are some wonderful lines. (I'm getting a copy out of the library to have a look.)

The cast are uniformly superb, and Jessica Biel, (someone I don't remember seeing before), is a match for all of them as the Outsider in the family. Colin Frith plays someone who is pretty much dead in his soul, which suits him well, as that seems to be the role he likes to play most of the time, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Biel's mother-in-law pours absolute venom with every line and look. Each and every smaller part is filled with a top-notch character actor, though perhaps Kris Marshall, as Furber, the butler steals any thunder that's left over.

Fabulous stately homes play an important part, and the countryside looks terrific, thanks to Martin Kenzie. And then there's the 20s music, flitting in and out of the character's mouths and onto the soundtrack seamlessly.

What more to say about it? The story leaves all sorts of corners open at the end, even though the finale is satisfactory, and you have to wonder what a sequel might possibly bring. Death or life for those of the family who are left? Thoroughly enjoyable.