User reviews

A most notable characteristic of this film is that it rather zanily merges the 1920's with the 1930's. That historical distortion may seem a slight defect to some viewers choosing to concentrate on a broader stage involving the upper class in its last throes of excess, but for me it destroys the underlying plot. The years before the Great Depression -- the Roaring 20's -- were sui generis. Moving everything forward to events as late as 1940 is a forced element that simply fails.

Otherwise, there are some bright young moments here. Character actors do indeed steal the show, even if some are given throw-away roles. If only there were better and more believable development of various interactions between the leads, it would make for compelling drama; but we are treated instead to campy olio resolving itself into a strange conclusion, somewhat surreal. For example, the business between Adam and Ginger having to do with money as WWII rages on is misplaced farce -- even if the audience assumes a generous disposition of credulity.

Little wonder outsiders looking in have a difficult time with this film, not to mention us history buffs.

As one of the best assets humanity can boast to count among itself, Stephen Fry has delighted the world across a vast array of media, firmly establishing himself as one of my very favourite entertainers. How then, you ask, could it have taken me so unforgivably long to sample his Bright Young Things?

Having just penned the novel from which the film takes its name, Adam Symes is crestfallen to have it taken from him by customs as contraband literature. He returns to his life of yuppie indulgence (if indeed the film's '30s/'40s setting will permit the usage of that term) where he is variously delighted and disappointed by the tide-like fortunes of his financial situation, and the uncertainty concerning his ability to wed his beloved Nina.

Beginning with an expository reporter attempting to gain access to a lascivious and drug fuelled party, Bright Young Things launches us into the wild party lifestyle of its central cast of characters. The cocaine and absinthe combinations proclaimed by Nina as boring impress upon us the extent of the inter-war indulgence of the London youth. Things are somewhat slow to start, though the positively delightful and flowery banter of Fry's script keeps us both amused and entranced by the language of the era. Humour comes spouting from the supporting cast: the likes of Fenella Woolgar and Michael Sheen lend more laughs than the main acts themselves, who are generally left to present the dramatic front of the movie. Without doubt the film's best factor is the scene in which the hopeful Symes visits his father-in-law-to-be, a crackpot lunatic played splendidly by Peter O' Toole. As the running time finds itself elapsed, the drama begins to more firmly announce its presence to us, the stakes yet again raised and the outcome looking ever more bleak. The problem is that this never reaches a sufficient and acceptable zenith. No point of conclusion is reached wherein the characters seem to transform beyond the horrid snobs they began life before our eyes as, a shame given the potential this may have had. Not, that is to say, that the characters are unlikeable. In spite of their vices they grow upon us and become endeared to us, though we look on like disappointed parents, hopefully awaiting the time when they will learn the folly of their ways and grow up, a time the film never presents, or at least not expressly enough. I understand the novel on which the film is based takes this more desired route, the film's distance from this perhaps the product of Fry's wishes to carve his own story. In any case, despite the slight disappointment of the lack of redemption, the film is consistent in its humorous and dramatic elements, which blend together to give a decent slice of entertainment.

Almost certainly less good than it could and should have been, Bright Young Things feels like it fell at the last hurdle. That said, it was never at the front of the race. A perfectly competent debut from Mr Fry, one cannot disagree that the film holds its own.

Stephen Fry is such a prodigious polymath that it's no surprise what a good fist he's made of his directorial debut. That's not to say it's wholly successful; the characters are so shallow that it is hard to warm to them, although it should be pointed out that this is not necessarily a fault. Indeed, it's refreshing these days to find a film in which characters are not trying to ingratiate themselves. Emily Mortimer is exempt from this observation in any case, as she's just so adorable - and is it just me or does she look a dead spit for the young Mary Steenburgen?

I found not only the camerawork but the lighting extremely gaudy, sometimes offputtingly so. However, Fry is admirably adventurous in some of his camera sweeps, not playing it safe as some inexperienced directors do.

As to the performances, it is true that Simon Callow hams it up quite outrageously (although he still wrung a couple of chuckles out of me), and I found Michael Sheen's uber-camp queen rather wearing, until his scene at the end which I thought he handled well. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but it bears repetition: Fenella Woolgar is a revelation in this film, conveying the insouciance of the upper class effortlessly (and the scene after the "orgy" with the stern family is priceless). James McEvoy was excellent too.

Oh, and by the way, to whomever described Evelyn Waugh as "herself one of the beauties of the age" - you may have been joking, but in case not, Evelyn Waugh was in fact a curmudgeonly man who would no doubt have snorted to hear himself thus described!

I always approach film adaptations of literary works with foreboding. Usually the foreboding is justified; sometimes, as with the excellent adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 'A Handful of Dust' the film version captures the essence of the work. Here Stephen Fry, directing for the first time, has succeeded in capturing the gay heedlessness of his characters but has managed to blunt Waugh's acid wit with a mawkish and uncalled for ending.

The plot, such as there is, concerns the attempts of Adam (Stephen Campbell-Moore), society gossip columnist and aspiring novelist, to get published, and to persuade the beautiful Nina (Emily Mortimer) to marry him. Along the way he attends a number of social and sporting events, documenting the activities of the same group of upper class twits (who are not entirely unsympathetic). Some scenes really come across well, such as the impounding of the manuscript of Adams novel at Dover by a customs official (Jim Carter) who seems to be under the strange delusion that all hand-written manuscripts are pornographic. Dan Ackroyd as Adam's employer the Beaverbrook-like Lord Monomark is also very amusing and Peter O'Toole does a good comic turn as Nina's addled father.

The book ('Vile Bodies') had a narrative flow to it - a rake's progress, if you like, but the film is episodic, some scenes work better than others, and of course the ending both departs from the book and is wrong anyway. Some cameos work better than others (John Mills as a 90 year old inadvertent cocaine user was just absurd) though the young leads generally put in spirited performances, especially Fenella Woolgar as Agatha the Demon Driver (a veritable female Toad).

All in all a bit of a mess, and I'm sure Waugh would have demanded his name off the credits. It's a film that probably doesn't tell us much about its era (late 20s-early 30s) but it may have something to tell us about our own. I'll let you know when I work out what that is, but it could be something like 'a dozen cameos do not a good movie make.

"Bright Young Things" is another film that I push to rate it six stars simply because of its huge cast of prominent actors of its time. The most widely known include Peter O'Toole, Dan Aykroyd, James McAvoy, Stephen Fry, John Mills, Stockard Channing and Jim Broadbent. There are many more of the younger generation of actors at the turn of the 21st century.

The film does give a sense of the wild life and crazy times of the social scene of London during the Roaring 20s. But it fails on most points to convey the picture and commentary of its source book. That was the 1930 novel, "Vile Bodies," by Evelyn Waugh. The book was a clear scathing satire of the hedonistic attitude of the time by the young aristocratic and socialite set. And, it was completely set in the Roaring 20s, not also during the Great Depression of the 30s up until World War II.

Some other reviewers have commented on this and other deviations and shortcomings from the novel. But also, the acting and inaugural directing by Stephen Fry were much in need of improvement.

I thought it interesting that this book should find its way in the cinema so long after its publication, and in a world that had become so far removed and much less interested in that time or the times of the past. "The Bright Young Things" was the name that the press of the day used to refer to the up and coming aristocrats and socialites who seemed to live lives around a never-ending circle of parties and wild times. It included booze, drugs and a Bohemian lifestyle in general. While the identity of members of the group was rather arbitrary, it had as many as 400 people variously thought to be among them

There was no membership per se, and some who were considered a part of the Bright Young Things would have been only in their late teens by 1930, and some others in their late 40s and even 50 or so. So it depended on who was writing about what people or group at the time.

One list on the Internet has four men who later became Prime Ministers of England, two members of the royal family, a Nazi collaborator (John Amery) who was executed as a traitor after the end of WW II, and two men who became notorious as Soviet spies. It also includes some 20 people who were or became authors and more than a dozen who became prominent actors.

The authors included Waugh himself, as well as Hilaire Belloc, Noel Coward, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, D. H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, George Orwell, P. G. Woodhouse and Virginia Woolf. The actors include Tallulah Bankhead, Gladys Cooper, Elissa Landi, Charles Laughton, Anna Neagle, Norma Shearer, Viola Tree, Rudolph Valentino, and Paul Robeson.

Critics gave the film mixed reviews. Some of the better known media critics rated the film fair to good. But it flopped with audiences. In a quick check I couldn't find any budget information. But the main Web listing of the top 200 films for 2003 didn't even list "Bright Young Things." The 200th finished the year with just over $3 million in ticket sales. So, this film probably lost a big chunk of change for its makers.

Bright Young Things

The difference between London and New York circa 1920s was British flappers drove drunk on the left side of the road.

Luckily, the young folks in this drama have cocaine to sober them up.

During the twenties, the well-to-do English youth threw elaborate booze and narcotic filled parties.

Involved in the shenanigans are struggling writer Adam (Stephen Campbell) and his soon-to-be wife (Emily Mortimer).

But before they can marry, Adam needs to claim horse-race winnings from an eccentric Major (Jim Broadbent).

To make ends meet, he ghostwrites a gossip column expounding the daily dalliances of his friends (Michael Sheen, Fenella Woolgar), to the pleasure of his editor (Dan Aykroyd)

A well-acted glimpse at England's self-indulgent post-WWI climate, Young Bright Things manages to show the perils of being young and rich as much as the pearls.

Besides, it's better to party when you don't need a nurse to do a keg-stand.

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This is one of the best films I have seen in a while. I was lucky to be able to catch it at Washington, DC's International Film Fest, but I hope that it gets a proper U.S. release date soon.

The stunning costumes, set, and dialogue -- all very era-appropriate -- were compelling. I don't usually go for period pieces, but so much of this movie seemed tongue-and-cheek that I couldn't help enjoying it. The main characters were well-developed, each with their own quirks, and there were some unexpected twists that helped move the plot along.

Stephen Campbell Moore, the actor who plays the lead (Adam Symes), is a real find. He carries the movie beautifully, and I wouldn't be surprised if he became a huge star. Even though Moore does fine on his own, you have to give credit to Simon Callow (King of Anatolia), Jim Broadbent (the drunk Major), and others in the supporting cast for mastering their oddball roles. Furthermore, the costume designer deserves an Oscar.

I was a bit disappointed with the ending, or at least the scenes leading up to the end. The film starts out like a carnival ride and runs out of gas near the end. But, like all good carnival rides, once you finish, you want to get back on. That's the way I felt about "Bright Young Things." I can't wait to see it in the theater again.

Bright Young Things was really enjoyable. The casting was perfect and I think it is the best project Stephen Fry has worked on. It was a great adaptation of a classic novel and really captures so much that is true about class and society in Britain. I really enjoyed the performances.

"Bright Young Things" is a comedy that's never funny, a period piece that doesn't know what period it's in, and a party film that leaves you with the hangover.

When writer-director Stephen Fry decided to make an adaptation of an Evelyn Waugh novel, he could have done himself a favor and not adapted "Vile Bodies." It's an episodic satire on the lives of a group of London club kids in the late 1920s that attempts to elicit laughter from the nasty ways they are run to ground by the world around them. The characters aren't meant for any deeper emotional investment than lab rats, though Fry seems to believe otherwise.

At the center of the story, in both novel and film, is young Adam (Stephen Campbell Moore), who at the start of our story has lost his prized manuscript and is desperately trying to find new sources of funding with which to marry his lover Nina (Emily Mortimer). Opportunity comes in the form of an offer from publisher Lord Monomark (Dan Aykroyd) who wants Adam's help "tearing the lid off the young, idle, and rich."

"I put Seignior Mussolini on the front page, no one buys a copy," he laments. "But a picture of one of your set in a nightclub, I can't print enough copies."

The problem with both the novel and the film is this interesting idea is dropped almost before it begins, in favor of a number of other outrageous episodes which seem to act on the principle that anything can be made merry provided it moves fast enough. Like a strange major who makes off with some money Adam wanted to bet on a long-shot horse. Or a party that winds up finding themselves in the Prime Minister's residence. Or a car race that loses a wayward driver. All of this is drawn out as if it were funny merely by being incongruous.

The film is worse on a few counts. First, Fry by necessity condenses the story but is at pains to include almost every character that appears in the book, as a way of facilitating assorted cameos that run from extraneous (Richard E. Grant as an angry Jesuit) to sad (John Mills as a mute coke sniffer). Second, he invests his version with an elegiac sadness that feels totally out of place in the second half. Nothing says comedy like a man sticking his head in an oven, or another tearfully discovering his homosexual lifestyle exposed.

Even the main romance, a matter of crass opportunism in the book, is presented as a kind of real love story, even heroic as the Roaring '20s zip suddenly ahead to Dunkirk and the Blitz. Fry doesn't seem to trust either Waugh's wit or his own to make "Bright Young Things" work on comedic grounds, or else he really thinks the characters worth celebrating. The result is a doubled-down waste of our time.

The cast are the first things that strike you when you watch this movie and their wonderful performances, (especially Michael Sheen), start off the film brilliantly and everything that follows reaches the same level. A great Revolution Films achievement, funny, different and intelligent, a great watch.

If you have seen (and presumably enjoyed) the 1971 Ken Russell musical THE BOYFRIEND then you will most likely enjoy Stephen Fry's adaptation of Vile Bodies. It does tend to trail off but so does the lives of these vacuous young things. Sort of campy-Coen too. The art direction and period setting is excellent and those craftsmen are deserving as much acclaim as Shirley Russell in the late 60s......and awarded an Oscar if one is nominated. I presume it was not a huge budget.....I have heard $15m USD which is pretty good and very well spent. More Moulin than Chicago and very Boyfriend. As a 'smart set' satire of modern young Brits zooming about in drug soaked gin hazes of the last days of the gramophone dance party 20s, BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS is a sarcastic title indeed! The last act detour into the 30s and war years is a strange epitaph but I guess solidly ties up all the story threads. Good surprises and some tattered excellence after all the snazziness of the first hour.

Stephen Fry's directorial debut is a second-rate attempt at updating Evelyn Waugh's novel. To make the film more 'accessible' Fry pretends to be Baz Luhrmann - and fails. Bright Young Things has possibly the noisiest and most unrelenting soundtrack of the year, with so much cutting between shots that I began to feel that I had whiplash. This is an exercise style over content, but the style really isn't much to write home about.

Bright Young Things is one of those wretched literary adaptations where the writer/director is desperate to say "oh, it might be a period piece, but how little things have changed". And Fry takes every opportunity to underline this point. Over and over and over again. Watching Sir John Mills's character snorting coke (actually it wasn't really a character, more of a cypher or stereotype like virtually all the other roles here) was one of the more embarrassing screen moments of 2003.

The film has no sense of narrative drive or pace. It's difficult to either follow or care. Unfortunately newcomer Stephen Campbell Moore who is as close as the film gets to a main protagonist is a dull, uncharismatic actor. Michael Sheen overacts and looks embarrassed in a ridiculous role. However there are star turns from Fenella Woolgar and James McAvoy who manage to rivet even when everything else is flailing around them.

Fatally, the film has absolutely no sense of period whatsoever and seems littered with borrowings from across the 20th century. Waugh's novel was about the Jazz Age of the 1920s. Fry's world is a kind of incorrectly jazzy 30s, with added 21st century haircuts. The final scenes set during the Second World War seem lame and are, of course, simply wrong - the novel was written in 1930.

The film is ill-conceived and poorly executed. I had always assumed that Stephen Fry would be the right man to adapt Waugh, but here he proves that he doesn't have the least idea what makes good cinema, let alone a convincing adaptation.

"Bright Young Things" is a very stylish adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel, "Vile Bodies". I felt the film captured the snarky satire tone of the novel and was a fairly decent effort on the part of Stephen Fry who was making his directorial debut. I found the film played fairly light and enjoyable; a bit like a meringue that way. I suspect that this is a film for those with a fondness for wicked satire, in jokes and an interest in period pieces.

There is a kind of manic pacing to the film and the cinematography which I suppose matches the feeling of the time. People had survived a war, and a pandemic so it might make one a bit dotty.

I was quite pleased by some of the work by some of the young actors who had never been in a film before. They had a pleasant ease infront of the camera.

It isn't going to be some over the top smash. It is one of those nice art house films that one later rents from the library and shares with certain friends who have a taste for colorful clothes and characters.

A look at british life in the 1920s and 1930s. Evelyn waugh certainly did have a flair for the wacky and fringe stories. We meet adam the writer, and agatha, his best friend. They are just arriving in england, and are both having a terrible start. She's been accused of being a jewel thief, and customs throws out adam's draft of the novel he's just written. And adam was counting on that income to get married to nina. Lots of parties. The young jet-setters are having fun at parties, spending daddy's money, and enjoying life. Nina is sweet, but kind of an airhead. And they all have a love hate relationship with the gossip columnists. They want the admiration, but resent the invasion of privacy when it doesn't suit them. Not much has changed in a hundred years! Will adam and nina ever get married? Will he re-write his book? Co-stars dan akroyd, james mcavoy, emily mortimer. It's fun to tag along. Directed by stephen fry. The only film he ever directed! There was also a silent film titled bright young things released in 1927, but so little is known about that film. Waugh's book vile bodies wasn't published until 1930, but may have dealt with the same subject matter. This film is pretty good.. but I liked the loved one even more!

This is not the first of Evelyn Waugh's books to be adapted for visual entertainment. In the late ‘70's Brideshead Revisited was adapted into an excellent television drama that spanned several weeks allowing character development that is not impossible in a 90-minute film. Merchant Ivory used their skills of pacing and lavish cinema photography to produce a terribly poignant adaptation of A Handful of Dust. However Vile Bodies presents its adaptor with a number of problems. It is quite a short book and Waugh's first success. Like Jackie Collins's novels of the ‘70's/'80's (and even Richard E Grant's By Design) part of its success was in the recognition of the real people behind the thinly disguised characters. Now, of course, these 20's celebrities are mainly unknown to today's readers. Waugh himself acknowledges that:- `The composition of Vile Bodies was interrupted by a sharp disturbance in my private life and was finished in a very different mood from that which it was began. The reader may, perhaps, notice the transition from gaiety to bitterness.'

Although Waugh viewed the book as a comic one, which it is, I felt that his own awareness of the tragedy of life came through by the end. Therefore I was uneasy with the Hollywood `happy ending' that Mr Fry had concocted.

It is very difficult to be objective about your own work and Stephen Fry not only directed this film he wrote the screenplay. I'm not completely aware of the whole process of filmmaking but I felt that there were areas in the film that would have benefited from someone else's input. For example; there were a lot of very short scenes at the beginning of film and towards the end a long monologue. Both of which irritated for different reasons.

Amongst the main characters Miles (Michael Sheen) and Agartha (Fenella Woolgar) enliven the film, as they were meant to. Our hero Adam (Stephen Campbell Moore) is likable and good-looking enough and his situation affords him our sympathies. The heroine Nina (Emily Mortimer) is beautiful, exquisitely dressed but a little too self-absorbed to be totally likable. Although I'm a fan of Richard E Grant in a film of many famous cameos his is not one that stands out. Although he successfully oozes the disapproval that his upright Priest characterisation requires. More memorable are John Mills zestfully sniffing cocaine and Peter O'Toole portrayal of Nina's father. Every scene seems to contain a well-known, British actor in a supporting role and, without exception, all their performances in this film were well executed.

Stephen Fry states he would like to direct again. I hope he is given that chance. Although the film has a few flaws it is not a bad movie and it is British. Our problem, as an industry, is that we make so few films but we expect them all to be brilliant. Stephen may not have produced a diamond but, despite the limitations of the original plotline, it is definitely a diamante.

"Mustering almost half of the entire sphere of British thespians, the cast is an embarrassment of riches, with prestigious names like Peter O'Toole and John Mills in cameos and bit parts, but first-time actor Stephen Campbell Moore only makes a bland man-about-town, whereas a 23-year-old James McAvoy shows appreciable ranges as the desperate columnist Simon Balcom, and as the bohemian fruitcake Agatha, a ditzy Fenella Woolgar is both hilarious and heartrending with her larger-than-life bravura. By and large, BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS is a coruscating time capsule that attests the old-time adage: all that glitters is hardly gold."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks

This is a wonderful evocation of the lost world of pre-War London Bohemian high society, based on the novel 'Vile Bodies' by Evelyn Waugh. It is of course intended to be a pastiche, and Stephen Fry's ability to stop it every time just as it is about to stray into 'high camp' is a model of directorial restraint, with actors who could easily all have become out of control if given free rein. One of the most spectacular performances in the film is that by Fenella Woolgar, whose portrayal of an elitist aristocratic Bohemian who eventually goes mad is done to utter perfection. Fry was able to do this film and get these amazing performances because he really does know this kind of people, and he and his actor friends (yes, they were all friends, including Sir John Mills who does not speak) were able to fine-tune the performances to absolute perfection. The old saying 'It takes one to know one' can in this case be altered to: 'It takes one to show one.' Fry does not hesitate to show the behavioural excesses, revolting hypocrisy, and sickening aloofness and indifference to reality of the 'bright young things' in this film. It is a morality tale, but thoroughly entertaining and brilliantly realised. A triumph, frankly.

But not worth 10/10. Difficult to say the reason. Perhaps little too reminiscent of Stephen Fry, of whom I'm not a great fan. After checking with Wikipedia I realise the cause, or causes, of my uneasy feelings, which managed to mar my full enjoyment of this performance. The fact is that Fry slightly repels me. Moreover, his direction of BYT did not exactly match my dim memory of the novel, which I read long ago, and which I must now read again. Sorry about that. Movie worth seeing, once, however.

I saw Bright Young Things tonight. Sorry. But it had to be done.

Since I expected it to be awful, it didn't seem so bad. It's certainly a very pretty film. The main character I suppose is intended to be Evelyn Waugh. And he does a good job, and a bad one. Sometimes he behaves and talks just like you would think Waugh would have. At other times he's a million miles off. And the same with the plot lines. Some remind you of Saki, but others of Spielberg. I laughed out loud at times, and cringed at others. The ending is more shamelessly syrupy than anything even Spielberg would dare. Almost Bollywood. Waugh would have hated it.

I think this is a confused effort. Stephen Fry didn't know if he wanted to do Pinewood or Hollywood. So he did them both. Unfortunately it's an uneven mix that falls apart at the end.

If anyone thought that popular obsession with manufactured celebrity was a new phenomenon, they would only have to see Stephen Fry's film 'Bright Young Things', based on Evelyn Waugh's novel of inter-war society, to learn they were mistaken. But the title of the original work was 'Vile Bodies', and the jollier title seems consistent with a film which, while great fun, lacks the satirical edge that Waugh was known for. We do get lots of débutantes gallivanting about, but it all is made to seem rather jolly, and although the coming of the war provides a context that makes the high jinks seem a little uncomfortable, the war changed every level of British society, so in itself this proves rather little. Meanwhile, a fine gallery of mainly Briths actors and actresses enjoy themselves dressing up, and Peter O'Toole in particular is outrageous. But a call to revolution this is not.