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BY MAGGIE SCOTT
One telling item in the director’s notes accompanying the DVD release of the original filmed version of Brideshead Revisited sums up what is so dismally wrong about the present theatrical remake of Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel: “…the potency of the story evaporated without the detail.”

In late 1979, 28-year-old Charles Sturridge, a relative newcomer to directing, took over the production after a 4-month technicians’ strike.

He soon discover that the original script by John Mortimer (of “Rumpole of the Bailey” fame) did not serve what eventually turned into a lyrical cleaving of film and novel through the narrative voice of the story’s hero, Charles Ryder, trenchantly spoken by Jeremy Irons.

Sturridge and his producer Derek Granger hammered out the expanded version of the teleplay (659 minutes for the U.K.’s ITV Network) during the year of filming. Its fluid beauty was the result in no small measure to their devotion to how thoroughly, deeply and unwaveringly Waugh penetrated the psychological makeup of his characters.

Sturridge’s actors were perfectly cast, with acting chops capable of declaiming huge chunks of dialogue with riveting veracity. Just what plot, themes and personalities was this outpouring of discursive brilliance serving?

Ryder, a reserved young man of the middle classes, bonds with the flamboyant, dipsomaniac Lord Sebastian Flyte during their Oxford schooldays in the early ‘20s; as they mingle with an effete, unruly crowd that evokes shades of Oscar Wilde. Charles is easily seduced (in the intellectual sense) by Sebastian, who’s a rebel on the surface, but is slowly strangling on the pious disapproval of his genteel mother.

Although Charles finds polite acceptance at Castle Brideshead (set then and now at the imposing Castle Howard), his growing attachment to the family begins to drive a wedge between him and Sebastian, who eventually betrays even the love he has for Charles with increasingly defiant bouts of drunkenness. Blamed for Sebastian’s collapse, Charles breaks away from the dysfunctional aristocrats for a number of years, only to be drawn back with the full flowering of a love affair with Sebastian’s sister, Julia, in the middle of a stormy Atlantic.

Divorce for both Charles and Julia from respective spouses (hers, a cad; his, a social climber) and their living-in-sin condition prove fatal stumbling blocks to their happily-ever-after. The rock upon which their love founders is the Catholic faith; not from dogma, but from disconnect—from what Julia believes would be a “shutting off from His mercy” if she does not renounce what her faith condemns. In 1981, Brideshead enthralled.

More than a quarter of a century later, in the hands of director Julian Jarrold, it wearies. Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell are no match for the memory of their predecessors, as they are completely miscast and out of their league even with this truncated version of the novel.

Only Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain stands out; but even she spoils the effect with the mischievous streak one can sense is flowing just beneath the surface of her character’s icy propriety, threatening to pop out at any moment as she casts a devout eye on her family and suggests they retire to the chapel for prayers.

Rated PG-13 for brief, partial nudity; sexual situation.

Missed a movie review? Check out Maggie Scott’s movie reviews on our website flovalleynews.com under “Movie Reviews.”
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