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Reviews Counted:127
Fresh:81
Rotten:46
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Suspenseful and beautifully mounted, Brideshead Revisited does an able job condensing Evelyn Waugh’s novel.
Theatrical Release:03-10-2008
Synopsis: Though director Julian Jarrold's adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel BRIDESHEAD REVISITED spans decades and continents, it's a taut film that never drags and can excite contemporary audiences.... [More]
Starring: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Emma Thompson
Director: Julian Jarrold
Threaded through with ambivalence about class, religion and sexuality, Brideshead Revisited is overnuanced, a world of delicate cruelty, where most of the wounds take place without breaking the skin or even a sweat.
A good, sound example of the British period drama; mid-range Merchant-Ivory, you could say.
Top CriticIn trying to wrestle the story into a workable running time, the film has taken a greatest hits approach to the material that recreates the best-known moments but which lacks all of the nuance and detail of either the book or the miniseries.
If you go with a group of friends to see Brideshead Revisited, the one who is still awake at the end wins a free dinner from the rest of the group.
It's rare to find a work that explores issues of faith without veering into religious fundamentalism or militant atheism, which is reason enough to revisit Brideshead one more time.
Still hard-hitting and dense, it's a film whose ideal audience consists of younger viewers who haven't seen the TV series and who therefore have nothing to compare it to.
[I]t's rather like its protagonist, Charles Ryder: really quite handsome to look at but so damn tedious and somber that you want to smack some sense into him.
It offers excellent performances by Whishaw, the always-reliable Gambon and especially Thompson as the strong, brittle, stubbornly Catholic dowager figure.
Facing incredible odds against it, this pass at conquering Brideshead is a worthy offering to the period-piece gods, presenting British aristocracy with the perfect edge of contempt.
Thompson, Goode and Atwell make for fine screen company, despite [Emma]Thompson's arguable miscasting.
Actually lives up to its pedigree, rendered lively with gorgeous scenery and a tart, droll script.
[A] lush, bold, intellectual treatment of the Evelyn Waugh novel about Catholicism and nonconformity, which ventures where the fabled '80s miniseries couldn't.
You have to admire the way it refrains from seizing the day for a postmodern lecture on the perils of fundamentalism, and confines itself to the disturbing vision of Evelyn Waugh.
Brideshead Revisited is opulent and watchable, yet except for Thompson's acting, it's missing something -- a grander, more ambivalent vision of the England it depicts dying out.
A sophisticated and well-acted screen version of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel about the toxic fallout from a Catholicism of sin, sacrifice, guilt, and otherworldliness.
If you can let go of your memories of the novel and the outstanding 1981 miniseries, this is enjoyable enough as tasteful melodrama.
The film version of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited transforms one of the quintessential novels of the 20th century into one of the grandest, most enriching films of 2008.
I recommend the brilliant pessimism of this film to all my readers, who I hope will appreciate the exquisitely rendered truthfulness of the narrative.
A very handsome period picture....But it's an almost perversely wrongheaded adaptation of the book.
A handsomely appointed but oddly unaffecting adaptation.
Top Critic
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October 03, 2008:
UK Critics Consensus: How To Lose Friends & Alienate People Does Just That; Whilst Brideshead Revisited Is Resisted
In the UK cinemas this week we have two literary adaptations with Simon Pegg as an irksome hack in How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, and Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited... More...
July 24, 2008:
Critics Consensus: File The X-Files Under "Disappointing"
This week at the movies, we learn that the truth is out there (The X-Files: I Want to Believe, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) and that step-sibling rivalry can be... More...
July 23, 2008:
Matthew Goode Talks Watchmen
He's out promoting Brideshead Revisited, but with a role in Watchmen, Matthew Goode knows what people really want to talk about -- and he was gracious enough to oblige Collider,... More...
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