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BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS *** out of *****
 Genres
2003
Written and directed by Stephen Fry Cast Emily Mortimer .... Nina Blount Stephen Campbell Moore .... Adam Fenwick-Symes James McAvoy .... Simon Balcairn Michael Sheen .... Miles David Tennant .... Ginger Littlejohn Fenella Woolgar .... Agatha Dan Aykroyd .... Lord Monomark Jim Broadbent .... Drunk Major Simon Callow .... King of Anatolia Jim Carter .... Chief Customs Officer Stockard Channing .... Mrs. Melrose Ape Richard E. Grant .... Father Rothschild Julia McKenzie .... Lottie Crump
After many years working in front of the camera actor/comedian Stephen Fry has gone for a change of pace for his latest project, this time he was to direct. Having been a fan of Fry’s many film and television appearances I was confident that whatever he did would be worth watching. Bright Young Things was his choice, a film adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel Vile Bodies. The story follows the lives of a novelist, Adam Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore), and his lover, Nina Blount (Emily Mortimer), as they mix it up with the upper echelons of fashionable 1930s London. Adam, having come to London to sell a book he has written entitled "Bright Young Things" gets swiftly taken to the customs office where it is confiscated as it’s thought to be pornographic material.
 | They may be "bright", but this shot
also proves that they are "things". | He eventually meets the publisher Lord Monomark (Dan Aykroyd) and is immediately in his service to re-write the book. Adam is continuously losing money faster than he can make it to keep up with his and his friends’ rather outrageous lifestyle, while at the same time attempting to on-again-off-again marry Nina and re-write the book. Life seems a bit much for Adam, but he is always seeing the optimistic side of life in an almost naïve carefree kind of way.
But when a chance encounter with a drunk Major (played to wonderful perfection by Jim Broadbent) leads to a large win at the races on an underdog horse, Adam is faced with having won a large amount of money and all he has to do is find the Major to collect his winnings, only problem is the Major is a hard person to get a hold of. As Adam moves along with his life he decides to take a job with his publisher as a secret gossip columnist to chronicle the fast moving lifestyle that his friends the wealthy and privileged of London lead. It’s all about sex, money, drugs, power and influence at the hands of twenty-somethings. Eventually his friends look for newer more dangerous sensations and one-by-one they eventually crash and burn.
 | Like glamorous hyenas, they wait
for an OD so they can scavenge
drugs. | Bright Young Things is above all a very entertaining look at high society in the 1930s with an almost modern feel (with all the parties, drinking and drugs you’d think this should have been a film set in today’s day and age) the film comes across as almost a 1930s Human Traffic meets the Hilton Sisters.
Fry certainly makes a bold statement, with the use of over-the-top performances by both the leads and the wonderfully eccentric supporting cast (which also includes a brilliant cameo role by the great Peter O’Toole as Nina’s father) that adds a lush flavour to the overall film. Equally impressive is the photography, that can only be described as an almost erotic use of bold colours. While the acting and the look of the film are both suited for the style the stand-out aspect of this film is the script. Fry had done a great job at adapting the book to his own comic sensibilities, the dialogue comes across as incredibly fresh and is mixed with a uniquely dry British sense of humour.
 | Ask any DOP. It takes a lot of red
cellophane to pull this off. | The film however does have its flaw. I use the singular because I could only find one thing that didn’t feel right to me and that was the ending, While I won’t give away the ending, it was over-the-top like the rest of the film. But during the majority of the film the eccentric behaviour was grounded in reality, while the ending, although rather amusing, seemed a little off that mark. Overall Bright Young Things was a fun film to watch, Fry has done well with his first directorial effort. Finger_Of_DOOM's reviews also appear on DVD Compare, where they include details of the DVD release. For this review click here. Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts) |
