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Actors: Array
Director: Stephen Fry
Manufacturer: Icon Home Entertainment
Director: Stephen Fry
Manufacturer: Icon Home Entertainment
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
69 of 72 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Stephen Fry's directorial debut didn't cause much of a splash at the box office, and received a fairly thorough critical panning. I had no plans to see this film due to the press criticism, but when I eventually got around to it, I was very pleasantly surprised.
The film rattles along at a great pace, with fantastic characters and great acting - Stephen Campbell Moore is a great lead, and Fenella Woolgar's Agatha Runcible is one of the funniest characters I've seen in a film.
The story is set in the 20s, but deals with the mores of our age - celebrity, decadence and style over substance. The film also looks amazing - capturing the colour, dazzle and decadence of the period. The visual richness is reminiscent of the deep colours and glitter used in Cabaret.
I wouldn't be surprised if Bright Young Things got bad reviews because of Stephen Fry - maybe critics don't want 'director' added to his already bulging CV. Don't believe the hype! See the film!
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a stylish, satirical and thoughtful movie about people not worth thinking too much about. We're in London in the Thirties. The wealthy, bored young spawn of the upper crust flit from party to party, keeping the dawn at bay and amusing each other with their brittleness and wit. We're in the middle of high society, "that uneasy alliance of bright young things and old survivors."
Adam Fenwick-Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore) wants to be a writer, hasn't a penny, but whose friends are all among the "things." He loves Nina Blount (Emily Mortimer), a young woman who would rather be bored and rich than bored and poor. (She finally marries a very boring, aristocratic young man, Ginger Littlejohn, who is rich. "Oh, darling," she says to Adam, "if only you were as rich as Ginger...or even half as rich.")
Throughout the movie Adam finds himself in situations where he comes close to money and loses it, whether it's gambling in a hotel which has wonderfully loose morals to working as Mr. Chatterbox, a gossip columnist for a press lord. His friends are fun and stylish, but also shallow, condescending and oblivious to any feelings except their own. "You bloody people," one person finally says to them, "Who the bloody hell do you think you are?" As the Thirties pass into the 1939 invasion of Poland and Britain's declaration war, the parties stop. Bad things happen and real life takes over. But eventually Adam and Nina find their way together, without money.
I liked this movie a lot. It has great style and dialogue, and things keep moving. It was based on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. The characters are superficial but after a while you get to know them. There are first-rate actors portraying these bright young things, including Michael Sheen as Miles, a wealthy young queen, and Fenella Woolgar as Agatha Runciple, a young woman without a reflective thought in her head. There are also wonderful performances by some well-known names in smaller parts: Jim Broadbent as an alcoholic colonel who shows up several times, Jim Carter as a filth-hating customs supervisor, Peter O'Toole as somewhat balmy aristocrat who isn't as eccentric as he appears, Simon Callow as the deposed king of Anatolia, and John Mills in a brief but funny bit as an old aristocrat at a party who mistakes a sniff of cocaine for a sniff of snuff.
The DVD picture and audio are first-rate.
Adam Fenwick-Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore) wants to be a writer, hasn't a penny, but whose friends are all among the "things." He loves Nina Blount (Emily Mortimer), a young woman who would rather be bored and rich than bored and poor. (She finally marries a very boring, aristocratic young man, Ginger Littlejohn, who is rich. "Oh, darling," she says to Adam, "if only you were as rich as Ginger...or even half as rich.")
Throughout the movie Adam finds himself in situations where he comes close to money and loses it, whether it's gambling in a hotel which has wonderfully loose morals to working as Mr. Chatterbox, a gossip columnist for a press lord. His friends are fun and stylish, but also shallow, condescending and oblivious to any feelings except their own. "You bloody people," one person finally says to them, "Who the bloody hell do you think you are?" As the Thirties pass into the 1939 invasion of Poland and Britain's declaration war, the parties stop. Bad things happen and real life takes over. But eventually Adam and Nina find their way together, without money.
I liked this movie a lot. It has great style and dialogue, and things keep moving. It was based on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. The characters are superficial but after a while you get to know them. There are first-rate actors portraying these bright young things, including Michael Sheen as Miles, a wealthy young queen, and Fenella Woolgar as Agatha Runciple, a young woman without a reflective thought in her head. There are also wonderful performances by some well-known names in smaller parts: Jim Broadbent as an alcoholic colonel who shows up several times, Jim Carter as a filth-hating customs supervisor, Peter O'Toole as somewhat balmy aristocrat who isn't as eccentric as he appears, Simon Callow as the deposed king of Anatolia, and John Mills in a brief but funny bit as an old aristocrat at a party who mistakes a sniff of cocaine for a sniff of snuff.
The DVD picture and audio are first-rate.
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I have to admit, I did buy this ONLY because James McAvoy is in it (and he is, as always, absolutely marvellous in it), although i have always admired Stephen Fry and expected this to be excellent. I was not disappointed. This is a great film for many reasons: the casting is spot on, the acting is superb (unsurprising, since there are so many excellent actors in it - Bill Paterson, Simon Callow, David Tennant, Emily Mortimer, Stephen Campbell Moore, Harriet Walter, Michael Sheen, to name but a few), the photography is beautiful, the screenplay dazzling, with many lines lifted directly from Vile Bodies, the Evelyn Waugh masterpiece it is based on, which is by no means a criticism - watch out for the line from James about wild animals! If you like period/wartime comedy/drama you will love this. The only small negative point is that the end is a bit of an anticlimax - but then i didnt want it to end....
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bright Young Things
Bright Young Things they certainly are, as the title suggests. Set in the roaring 20s this film follows the highs and lows of the set called Bright Young Things as they try to live... Read more
Published 1 month ago by L. Cannon
entertaining and funny
Lavishily shot and if you've ever read an Evelyn Waugh novel you'll understand the theme of shallow hedonistic bright young things living for today without much thought for... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Christopher Kemp
Painful
As a fan of Stephen Fry, Evelyn Waugh and many of the actors involved in this film, I was so confident that I would like it that I purchased the DVD. What a mistake that was! Read more
Published 9 months ago by KirkW1
Well
Personnaly I did not like it at all, I even could not watch it till the end. I was quite disappointed.
my opinion: this is a useless film...
my opinion: this is a useless film...
Published 9 months ago by Valdrez
How did something so promising turn out so dull?
This is a mystery to me, it really is. The adaptation of a fabulous, witty satire of an outrageous social set with a cast to die for and the direction of the wonderful Stephen Fry... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Minerva
Do you mind terribly?
I do mind, but perhaps not "terribly," that Waugh's satyrical, absurd masterpiece has been reduced to an entertaining, engaging, but not at all deep or thought-provoking flick. Read more
Published 20 months ago by A. Ecsedy
Great film and well acted
Brilliant film and beautifully acted by all highly recommend this comic tragic tale of the twenties.
Published 21 months ago by Kevin Bransbury-jones
Bright Young Things
Based on the Evelyn Waugh book, Stephen Fry has surpassed himself with this stunning adaptation.
Published 24 months ago by R. Oku
A Bright Mess
This attempt to film "Vile Bodies" falls so far short of the novel in so may ways that it would be tiresome to list them. Read more
Published on 10 Dec 2009 by D. C. Davies
Good but not really a keeper
This was very good but I didn't get the urge to watch it more than once.
Published on 14 Jun 2009 by H
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