SnoopyStyle It's 1929. Larita (Jessica Biel) is a celebrated American race car driver. Major Jim Whittaker (Colin Firth) is the head of a large British estate haunted by the war. His wife Veronica (Kristin Scott Thomas) manages the estate's slow decline. To her dismay, her favorite John (Ben Barnes) returns married to the brash American divorcée Larita. Larita plans to live their own lives but Veronica has plans for her son to continue the estate. They are joined by John's former girlfriend neighbor Sarah Hurst and her brother Philip. Sister Hilda has a crush on Philip. The stay becomes a battle with a dead dog and some public flashing.Based on Noël Coward's work, this tries to have a breezy comedic feel. There is some fun to be had but it's not much more than that. Biel fits the modern liberated American woman. Kristin Scott Thomas is a great foil. Firth is safe. However, the movie doesn't excite. The sharpness is fleeting. Like the estate, the movie seems to fade away.

MBunge No film involving Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas and Noel Coward can be all bad. Easy Virtue comes a good deal closer than it should. Coward's sparkling wit barely manages to overcome the laborious adaptation of Stephan Elliott and Sheridian Jobbins, with Elliott's cumbersome direction not helping any. Firth and Thomas are marvelous and a decent chunk of the cast follows their example as well as they can. Jessica Biel, however, is not just terribly miscast but displays the limits of her ability with an often mannered and occasionally brittle performance. The first hour of the movie is more or less enjoyably carried along by an emphasis on Coward's humor. The last half hour turns dour and lifeless. Throw in a soundtrack that is constantly annoying in its doubly anachronistic fashion and you've got a motion picture that can't manage to do more than break even.John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) is a young Englishman abroad who meets an unconventional America race car driver named Larita (Jessica Biel), marries her and the two of them return to John's family estate. His controlling, resolute mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) only wants to be rid of Larita. John's WWI veteran father (Colin Firth) is roused from his "Lost Generation" ennui by the arrival of his new daughter-in-law. John's two sisters (Kimberly Nixon and Katherine Parkinson) vacillate between being intrigued and appalled by the new arrival. John's hasty union with Larita has spoiled long-anticipated dreams of his marrying the "girl from the country estate next door" (Charlotte Riley) and Larita's desire for a city life and gainful employment are contrary to John's gentry upbringing and his mother's plans for John to take over control of the family fortune, which has fallen on hard times. A secret from Larita's past may give John's mother everything she wants, but is that what John wants?I'm not the one to compare this production with Coward's original play or the 1928 silent movie version. All I can do is evaluate 2008's Easy Virtue on its own merits. As previously mentioned, it has some but they are nearly equaled by its flaws. I don't think these filmmakers every realized that in their approach, the most sympathetic figure in the story is John's mother. She's a woman under tremendous stress from trying to hold her family together single handed, only to find the future of her home and her son imperiled by a strange interloper. As the two women struggle over the feckless John, it's hard not to root for the mother no matter what the film throws at you. And while Ben Barnes and the other performers look almost as at ease inhabiting their characters as Firth and Thomas, Biel appears very "actorly" for the vast majority of time she's on screen. She's not speaking. She's reading lines. And Biel is also far too young and fresh-looking for her role as its sculpted by Jobbins and Elliott.Easy Virtue is an easy mark for a critic. You could gush over Coward's words the work most of the actors or you could pick apart the pacing and tone and Biel's inappropriate presence. I'll say it's a movie you probably won't love but you probably won't hate it, either. Your affection for Noel Coward should probably decide whether to watch it or not.

Jackson Booth-Millard I think I saw a review for this British film on Film 2008 with Jonathan Ross, I was certainly up for trying it because of a very appealing cast, based on the Noël Coward play, from director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). Basically, set in 1929, the Whittaker family live in a large rural estate mansion, and they are sinking into bankruptcy, but they try to carry on as normal, especially as they are expecting a return and a new addition. John (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian's Ben Barnes) is returning home from Monaco, where he met and married American widow and race car driver Larita (The Illusionist's Jessica Biel), and with a mind of her own she assumes they are just visiting and then moving to London. But she had not counted on the mother-in-law, Mrs. Veronica Whittaker (Kristin Scott Thomas), she is icy cold and wants her son to help bring the family out of their situation, whereas father-in-law Major Jim Whittaker (Colin Firth) and sisters-in-law Hilda (Fresh Meat's Kimberley Nixon) and Marion (The IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson) find her charming. As time goes by Larita finds it hard to fit in to the British higher class traditions and the activities and interests of the family members, and after accidentally killing the pet chihuahua she knows that it will cause even more tension. This is of course eventually found out, but Larita also gives joking advice to Hilda about a performance on stage, to not wear underwear underneath the costume, but she took this literally, and more embarrassing, the sister-in-law catches her and John making love. With all these complications between the new relatives, the only sympathetic ear Larita can find is talking to the Major, repairing his old motorbike, and from the servants, including sarcastic butler Furber (My Family's Kris Marshall), all of whom treat her much better. Veronica in the time forced to get to know her son's new wife tried a few dirty tricks and said some nasty things, but Larita is not humiliated by her, but by a newspaper revealing scandalous secrets about her first marriage to an older man dying of cancer, whom she helped die with poison. In the end, with John rejecting her, leaving to his original love interest Sarah Hurst (Charlotte Riley), and having one final argument with Veronica, Larita sees nothing else to do but leave the home and the marriage, with the Major, who clearly has something for her, going with her. Also starring Christian Brassington as Phillip Hurst, Jim McManus as Jackson, Pip Torrens as Lord Hurst, Jeremy Hooton as Davis, Joanna Bacon as Cook, Maggie Hickey as Millie the Maid and Georgie Glen as Mrs. Landrigin. Scott Thomas is terrific as the unhappy mother-in-law, Biel is likable as the unusual American newcomer, Firth does great as the man who admires her very much, Barnes gets his moments being nice and getting frustrated, and supporting cast members Parkinson, Nixon and Marshall get their time used well also. It is a pretty simple of a woman borough into a new class of people, literally, and we obviously see the most often funny events and occasional consequences, the most funny moment being killing the dog and forced to sit on it waiting to dispose of the body, a funny and likable romantic comedy. Good!

ga-bsi This film was a wonderful surprise. I usually don't particularly enjoy Biel because I've only ever seen her in films like Stealth and Next, which were both quite terrible. To be perfectly honest I only rented the film because it was based on a play by Noel Coward, whose work I adore. I was ready to be mildly pleased and somewhat saved by Firth and Scott Thomas. I was absolutely delighted when Biel's portrayal of the American female race car driver who has a somewhat shady past was witty, strong and extremely likable. It would be silly to say that Biel does not normally look very attractive; but in this film she looked beautiful and graceful in her evening gowns and fitted trousers.Firth is as dashing and gorgeous as ever as the laconic father who is silently suffering the harrowing memories of the First World War, and his repressive wife and malicious and empty headed daughters. He provides Biel with the perfect support system, making her performance stand out even more with his perfect comic and dramatic timing. Their chemistry is electric and makes Biel and Barnes' pairing looking rather dull and badly matched. The scene in which he and Biel dance passionately to Latin music during a rigid and contrived Christmas party at the family mausoleum, otherwise known as the family cottage, is definitely my favourite part and the best display of their chemistry.Overall the film is witty, wonderful and surprisingly deep. Some may feel disappointed, but I feel that this is one of Noel Coward's best works. It seamlessly shows the unhappiness, secrets, suffering and hypocrisy of the outwardly wealthy but inwardly bankrupt upper class British aristocracy; the doomed pairing of two people who are well acquainted strangers who think they are in love; and the pairing of two people who should have been together all along and finally are.