ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

TRUE WIT has an ability to transcend time and distance. Noel Coward’s Easy Virtue was written over eighty years ago, but a new screen version reveals that it has lost none of its sparkle or charm.

Director Stephan Elliott is best known for Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, and approaches Coward with a breezy confidence that it is utterly engaging. This isn’t the kind of period piece that has been embalmed in reverence. Instead, it is a jaunty comedy of manners with a timeless twinkle and a spring in its step.

Coward was the master of the well-constructed, impeccably witty play that exposed some home truths about the emotional repression of the English middle-classes. There are lines in Easy Virtue of such delicious good humour that they can’t fail to connect with a modern audience.

Jessica Biel stars as Larita, a daredevil American race driver and divorcee during the roaring twenties. A whirlwind fling with naive Englishman John (Ben Barnes) leads to marriage. Now all that remains is for the happy couple to meet the parents.

Frosty mother Veronica (Kristin Scott Thomas) views Larita as a ghastly mistake. Grumpy old father Jim (Colin Firth) believes he may have found a kindred spirit, and so the stage is set for open warfare as the family try to uncover all the dirty secrets from Larita’s past that could convince John that this is not a marriage made in heaven.

A well-heeled production, Easy Virtue benefits from a cracking cast. Kristin Scott Thomas brings a manic malice to her role and Jessica Biel is a pleasant surprise as the American interloper who proves a match for her snobbish English opponents. An offbeat soundtrack adds to the fun in a thoroughly entertaining romp.

Nationwide release

Director: Stephan Elliott
Cast: Jessica Biel, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, Kris Marshall
Screenwriters: Stephan Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins based on the play by Noel Coward
Certificate: PG
Running time: 97 mins
Country: UK
Year: 2008

© Allan Hunter, 2008