This movie is another one of those too-busy pieces where it is difficult to keep track of who is whom and what, exactly, is going on. The writer tried to compress far too much detail in too little time, when he would have been better-advised to focus on a smaller time horizon with fewer characters. Nice stab at a period piece, and good enough to watch all the way through, but it just falls flat.
Nicely Done Satire, And Well Acted
This is a stylish, satirical and thoughtful movie about people not worth thinking too much about. We're in London in the Thirties. The wealthy, bored young spawn of the upper crust flit from party to party, keeping the dawn at bay and amusing each other with their brittleness and wit. We're in the middle of high society, "that uneasy alliance of bright young things and old survivors."
Adam Fenwick-Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore) wants to be a writer, hasn't a penny, but whose friends are all among the "things." He loves Nina Blount (Emily Mortimer), a young woman who would rather be bored and rich than bored and poor. (She finally marries a very boring, aristocratic young man, Ginger Littlejohn, who is rich. "Oh, darling," she says to Adam, "if only you were as rich as Ginger...or even half as rich.")
Throughout the movie Adam finds himself in situations where he comes close to money and loses it, whether it's gambling in a hotel which has wonderfully loose morals to working as Mr. Chatterbox, a gossip columnist for a press lord. His friends are fun and stylish, but also shallow, condescending and oblivious to any feelings except their own. "You bloody people," one person finally says to them, "Who the bloody hell do you think you are?" As the Thirties pass into the 1939 invasion of Poland and Britain's declaration war, the parties stop. Bad things happen and real life takes over. But eventually Adam and Nina find their way together, without money.
I liked this movie a lot. It has great style and dialogue, and things keep moving. It was based on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. The characters are superficial but after a while you get to know them. There are first-rate actors portraying these bright young things, including Michael Sheen as Miles, a wealthy young queen, and Fenella Woolgar as Agatha Runciple, a young woman without a reflective thought in her head. There are also wonderful performances by some well-known names in smaller parts: Jim Broadbent as an alcoholic colonel who shows up several times, Jim Carter as a filth-hating customs supervisor, Peter O'Toole as somewhat balmy aristocrat who isn't as eccentric as he appears, Simon Callow as the deposed king of Anatolia, and John Mills in a brief but funny bit as an old aristocrat at a party who mistakes a sniff of cocaine for a sniff of snuff.
The DVD picture and audio are first-rate.
parties about parties at parties
Humans seem to possess a certain natural predilection for celebrity adulation. There is and has always seemed to be a certain compulsion within society to canonize those with the power to subconsciously urge us to emulate their public persona. There has always seemed to be an unacknowledged urge to immortalize the charismatic few who possess what we could only dream of having; those who couldn't possibly be unhappy as they possess the very essence of what we deem as anything and everything anyone could ever want.
A celebrity, in the most basic sense of the word, is one who has garnered notoriety through means other than work or earnest activity. While there is and always has been the occasional celebrity truly worth the gossip column bearing their name, it seems that those who are most tantalizing are those who earn their celebrity via debauchery. The partiers, the outrageous, the gregarious and decadent, those who mingle with the beautiful and who sleep with the criminal are all so ineffably fascinating. Instead of working for their adulation these individuals ascend to the top tier of society by being youthful, beautiful, rich, and most importantly, unapologetically deviant. These individuals willingly engage in their transgression as if it were an occupation, making it seem as if they are the spindle around which every party, every newspaper column, and every mouth in whatever city they reside revolves.
An adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's `Vile Bodies', a book written in the twenties that envisioned a pre-World War Two society drunk with irresponsibility and glamour, Bright Young Things follows a group of young celebrity socialites trying to navigate through a world of hedonism and champagne. The story revolves around Adam Fenwick-Symes [Stephen Campbell Moore], a writer with a book contract who meets the woeful fate of having the only copy of his work confiscated at customs. He is penniless and must do journalistic work for his would-be publisher, Lord Monomark [Dan Ackroyd], making too small an amount to be able to marry his upwardly hopeful girlfriend Nina Blount [Emily Mortimer]. He soon finds himself writing a hot gossip column under the alias `Mr. Chatterbox', making up salacious stories of the parties attended by London's hottest socialites. As he manufactures vile celebrity tales, he makes efforts to gain his gambling money back from the Drunken Major [Jim Broadbent], his girlfriend back by a smarmy Ginger [David Tennant] and his writing career back from his uninspired brain.
First and foremost a film about character, Bright Young Things invites the audience to a party populated with remarkably talented new actors and established veterans at the top of their craft. As Adam Fenwick-Symes, Stephen Campbell Moore is both a young fawn as well as someone with such command of his character he seems as if he's been around forever, perfectly managing a character who could seem to pointlessly indecisive in the wrong hands. Emily Mortimer plays his girlfriend who is so gracefully charming, so wryly classic, and who has such a perfect squawky sort of voice its obvious why the likes of Adam or Ginger would want to marry her. Fenella Woolgar stands out as the party girl with a constant smile on her face and quip to deliver, a truly fabulous new actress with such a handle of character and timing its hard to imagine her as being anything other than established. James McAvoy is a perfectly iniquitous Mr. Chatterbox and Michael Sheen a classic dandy who slyly references Stephen Fry's Wilde.
Peripheral roles are all filled with actors of high talent and repute. Peter O'Toole hilariously plays Nina's father, Richard E. Grant shortly appears as a boorish priest, and Stockard Channing conducts an angel choir. Simon Callow frets humorously over a pen, Dan Ackroyd is a punchy businessman and Jim Broadbent serves as a drunken apparition of sorts. Others round out a cast that readily inspires lists in a similar manner that Mr. Chatterbox scandalously touts names. It's a film that isn't so much about an inciting plot as much as it is a set of interesting personalities, and what is important is how these personalities interact and deal with their frequent polarities of class and how they come together to rally against the oppressive decency society presents. It's an examination of characters often ostentatious and flighty, empty and flamboyant, ethically contemptuous and always in search for the party to end all parties. Bright Young Things takes many liberties with its cast, putting great thought into each role to compose an assemblage of actors new and old mixed together like a properly bold martini.
In regards to its technical qualities, the most standout features of the film rest in design areas and in lighting. Costumes are ornate, glitzy, and perfect for the period, while sets are large, aesthetic, and gracefully decorated. Cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, as the film is painted with as much fabulously garish energy as the characters which populate it. The very first shot in the film is of a party entirely lit in bright red, with the camera floating above dancing socialites in what seems like a fish bowl of cranberry juice. Another party is lit in icy blue, allowing skin of the bright young things to take on the porcelain effect of little cherubic starlets, and is a heavenly counterpart to the opening look. Beams of strong light fill Lord Monomark's expansive office, an angel chorus glows in the front of sparkling party guests, and beautiful old lamps are perpetually in the background of the frame. The film is lit as if there is life around every corner, with candles filling up a room, flickering warmly as characters dance in their midst. Dust floats through the air in sunbeams through windows; nothing here is ever still and even the air is full of parties. There is always a spirit of fun, a very distinct glitziness, and an obvious attempt to create a world as energetic as its characters.
In Bright Young Things, Stephen Fry takes us behind the doors and into the nightlife of Adam and his socialite-celebrity friends, plastering the screen with sequin-clad socialites, with starving artists and starry-eyed lovers. He takes the audience on a journey of delightful and utterly irresistible excess where nothing matters and life is acted out like a campy theatrical play. A scandalous tale of scandal itself, Bright Young things is drunk on its own glamour, trying to sustain the tawdry trumpets on its score well past the midnight hour. It's the film version of that drunkard who tries to last well past his prime at your most exclusive party, drawing attention to himself and never showing signs of leaving. Its that drunkard who should be violent but is instead so belligerent his intoxication makes him harmless, and as he stammers around one can't help but laugh and be thankful to whomever had the good grace to invite him.
Bright Young Things is a period piece that is relentlessly modern, with tabloid papers and socialites who gain fame simply for attending parties. It manages to feel very new and relevant despite its failure at being the satire it so pretends to be; instead of commenting on the emptiness of these decadent celebrities it indulges them and goes along for their ride. It allows itself to be as drunk as the characters it pretends to chastise. Little conflicts may be presented to those characters throughout, and sending them to wars and mental institutions isn't exactly congratulatory, but at its heart Bright Young Things cares more for its characters than it would like to admit. This is the hiccup in a story spilling champagne all over, but one that's ultimately not as much a problem as it should be. The hiccup is perfectly acceptable, for while everyone pretends to direct maliciousness towards the young and irresponsible, its impossible not to pay attention to and vicariously enjoy their hedonistic fun. Instead of brandishing these characters with placards displaying the uselessness of their lives as it pretends to do its just as empty and vile as they are, resulting in a film of outlandish color and spirit, teeming with vivacity and effervescent energy that works on an audience like bubbly alcohol coursing through the veins.
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