While its tone occasionally wavers and there are some wobbly performances, this has moments of true lightness, and a welcome sense of whimsy often missing in the costume genre.
Comment
11/07/08
Easy Virtue (2009)
51
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:113
Fresh:58
Rotten:55
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: A lightweight and pithy Noel Coward adaptation with plenty of sparkle and fizz.
Theatrical Release:07-11-2008
Synopsis: Adapted from a Noel Coward play, EASY VIRTUE is essentially a tale of Old World manners vs. New World freedom. The year is 1929, and John Whitaker (Ben Barnes) has just married a feisty American... [More]
Starring: Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Barnes
Director: Stephan Elliott
Reviews for Easy Virtue
Top CriticOverall, the film’s never less than lively – with Kris Marshall a nifty scene-stealer as the wise butler – yet you do get the sense that greater discipline all round would have made even more of it. As it is, it’s fizzy, but variable.
11/07/08
Top CriticStephan Elliott's best film since Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, Easy Virtue should satisfy fans of Coward, despite its differences to the original. A pity then that, despite Biel's sprightly turn, it feels better suited to the small screen.
11/07/08
Top CriticBut worst of all is the incessant, unbearably smug soundtrack that drills its way into your brain like a parasite.
11/07/08
Top CriticYet another period movie starring Colin Firth? Er, yes. But hang on. Director Stephan Elliott has cleverly filed down the Cowardy-sharp archaisms and by some miracle made something that seems very now.
11/07/08
Firth and Biel perform a rather elegant tango together, which cheers things up a little, but this is a heavy-footed affair.
11/07/08
Top CriticIf you can cope with the excruciating soundtrack medley (a jazz cover of Sex Bomb?) it's a perfectly jolly bauble.
11/07/08
Top CriticEasy on both eye and ear, this jaunty little number has many virtues to commend it.
11/07/08
It’s playful, it’s elegant, it’s fizzing with lacerating wit… after the stone-faced dreariness of The Duchess and Brideshead Revisited, it’s a welcome jolt of fresh air to see a Brit period piece you can just kick back and enjoy.
11/07/08
It is poorly shot, indifferently acted camp, based on a rightly forgotten Noel Coward comedy.
11/07/08
Fizzing with droll humour, pithy observations on the class system and some brilliantly acidic one-liners, it’s wall-to-wall wit on a grand scale.
11/07/08
Easy Virtue might be cute and fluffy but this reviewer thinks it should be extinct.
11/07/08
What did Noël Coward do to deserve Stephan Elliott’s cackhanded film of his play Easy Virtue?
11/07/08
Altogether a shambles, and perhaps uniquely in the Coward canon, it features not a single laugh.
11/07/08
It amounts to much ado about almost nothing. But that may be the result of Elliott’s attempt to make it entertaining rather than plausible.
11/07/08
Snappy and enjoyable, this British class comedy has enough spark to keep us entertained, even though the plot never quite shifts up to full speed. But a few terrific performances make it well worth seeing.
11/07/08
Enjoyable British comedy with a witty script, an amusingly quirky soundtrack and a terrific central performance from Jessica Biel.
10/29/08
The champagne wit of Noel Coward's eighty year old play still fizzes and sparkles in Stephan Elliott's jaunty adaptation of Easy Virtue.
10/18/08
A period piece that may play well with those who hate period pieces. [Blu-ray]
09/23/09
Easy Virtue makes subtle comedy look easy. The ensemble is brilliant, and Noel Coward's play-brought-to-film is just good enough . . . .
09/11/09
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