Easy Virtue: Jessica Biel's killer ass
Jun. 14th, 2009 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tartysuzI hope there's a recording out there of a producer selling Easy Virtue to a studio executive as "Merchant/Ivory meets Wedding Crashers," because that's the kind of inanity that would explain how a Noel Coward play could turn out to be such a dull and semi-zany movie.
Jessica Biel plays a post-WWI American adventuress who, after a whirlwind courtship, marries into the Whittaker clan, a family of landed English gentry. Does the liberated American woman shake up the hidebound English twittery? Yes! Does the harpy matriarch (Kirsten Scott Thomas) get her comeuppance? Yes! Does the depressive patriarch (Colin Firth) regain his spark of life at the appearance of his shiny new in-law? Yes! Do their useless adultleeches children get a lesson in how to live life from the spirited outsider? Is the long suffering, phlegmatic domestic staff ecstatic at the chance to work with the new mistress of the house to get their revenge on the old mistress? Are there balls and fancy dresses and fox hunts? Yes, yes, and oh yes and how!
Choosing to invest its time into these cliches, the film doesn't have any capital leftover to develop some important issues that lay in the background. We know that that the Whittaker estate is faring badly, but there's little attention paid to the larger reasons for this. (Some examples: there was a global recession after the war; Britain itself was totally broke; modern advances were playing havoc with old class and property structures: my roommate is reading a book on the economic repercussions of modern appliances, specifically on how the introduction of refrigeration allowed food sellers to import cheap produce and meat from around the world, bankrupting local farms such as the one depicted in this movie.)
So, knowing that the neighbouring farm is doing well enough to buy a tract of the Whittaker estate, the only explanation for the decline of the Whittaker fortunes is the non-leadership of the PTSD father, which forces the management of the estate to the mother, who is a controlling bitch who turns out a feckless son who gallivants around Europe marrying American adventuresses instead of manning up and marrying the neighbour's girl to preserve the estate. Yet, for all the wreckage left by the passivity of the male members of the family, it's the mother who is cast as villain -- even after she's given a bit of a redemptive moment. The men's foibles are exposed and forgiven -- rewarded even, for each gets the appropriate girl at the end -- but the mother has no such out.
That being said, the plot does create great opportunities for wit that the film never takes advantage of. Instead, we get much brooding, self-consciously "arty" mirroring shots, and incongruous sight gags that wouldn't make the cut of a Farrelly Brothers movie.
The worst involves Jessica Biel killing her hated mother-in-law's tiny pet dog by accidentally sitting on it, repeatedly, as various members of theTwittaker Whittaker family wander in and out of the drawing room. As if that's not bad enough, it's followed by a Klondike melodrama-worthy scene showing Biel and the domestic staff sneaking around to bury the dog: it was like something inserted from Benny Hill. In another context, this all might have been less WTF? but in this otherwise dull affair, the scene is cheap, heavy-handed, and, really, just kind of weird. It does, however, prove that Biel has a killer ass.
Speaking of Biel, she and the rest of the principal cast are all better than they need to be, with the exception of Ben Barnes, who plays the twinkie that Biel's character marries. He's given the thankless task of playing a character that's both bland and intensely annoying, but when it comes time to step up to his moment of redemption, he's... bland and intensely annoying. Given the upheaval he's caused the family, his utter self-absorption, and the actor's lack of competence, I have never so desperately wanted a movie character to be killed since Jar Jar Binks.
I went into this film without any expectations, and later read that the director and co-writer is Stephan Elliot of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert fame. I haven't seen that, but now I'm afraid to.
Jessica Biel plays a post-WWI American adventuress who, after a whirlwind courtship, marries into the Whittaker clan, a family of landed English gentry. Does the liberated American woman shake up the hidebound English twittery? Yes! Does the harpy matriarch (Kirsten Scott Thomas) get her comeuppance? Yes! Does the depressive patriarch (Colin Firth) regain his spark of life at the appearance of his shiny new in-law? Yes! Do their useless adult
Choosing to invest its time into these cliches, the film doesn't have any capital leftover to develop some important issues that lay in the background. We know that that the Whittaker estate is faring badly, but there's little attention paid to the larger reasons for this. (Some examples: there was a global recession after the war; Britain itself was totally broke; modern advances were playing havoc with old class and property structures: my roommate is reading a book on the economic repercussions of modern appliances, specifically on how the introduction of refrigeration allowed food sellers to import cheap produce and meat from around the world, bankrupting local farms such as the one depicted in this movie.)
So, knowing that the neighbouring farm is doing well enough to buy a tract of the Whittaker estate, the only explanation for the decline of the Whittaker fortunes is the non-leadership of the PTSD father, which forces the management of the estate to the mother, who is a controlling bitch who turns out a feckless son who gallivants around Europe marrying American adventuresses instead of manning up and marrying the neighbour's girl to preserve the estate. Yet, for all the wreckage left by the passivity of the male members of the family, it's the mother who is cast as villain -- even after she's given a bit of a redemptive moment. The men's foibles are exposed and forgiven -- rewarded even, for each gets the appropriate girl at the end -- but the mother has no such out.
That being said, the plot does create great opportunities for wit that the film never takes advantage of. Instead, we get much brooding, self-consciously "arty" mirroring shots, and incongruous sight gags that wouldn't make the cut of a Farrelly Brothers movie.
The worst involves Jessica Biel killing her hated mother-in-law's tiny pet dog by accidentally sitting on it, repeatedly, as various members of the
Speaking of Biel, she and the rest of the principal cast are all better than they need to be, with the exception of Ben Barnes, who plays the twinkie that Biel's character marries. He's given the thankless task of playing a character that's both bland and intensely annoying, but when it comes time to step up to his moment of redemption, he's... bland and intensely annoying. Given the upheaval he's caused the family, his utter self-absorption, and the actor's lack of competence, I have never so desperately wanted a movie character to be killed since Jar Jar Binks.
I went into this film without any expectations, and later read that the director and co-writer is Stephan Elliot of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert fame. I haven't seen that, but now I'm afraid to.
