The excellent Matthew Goode (The Lookout, Watchmen) is handed the incredibly daunting role of Charles Ryder, a sometimes cold, hard-to-read character from the Evelyn Waugh classic. Charles is an enigma, a near straight-man in a story of over-the-top characters. After just a few days away at school, Charles becomes entranced with the Marchmain family, befriending the clearly tormented Sebastian (Ben Whishaw of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer) and then meeting his lovely sister Julia (Hayley Atwell of Cassandra's Dream). (Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon take turns stealing scenes as Sebastian and Julia's parents.) Charles falls for Julia but Sebastian falls for Charles. And the man in the middle faces even more problems in the form of social class issues between him and his new friends and the religious ones more commonly at play in early-twentieth-century England. Ultimately, Brideshead Revisited is about a country going through massive changes - class, sexual, religious, and more - between the World Wars.

Adapted from the legendary novel by screenwriters Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock and directed by Becoming Jane's Julian Jarrold, Brideshead Revisited faced a nearly impossible task - take beloved source material that was turned into a widely praised mini-series and compress the hell out of it. What results is something that is sure to aggravate purists around the world. If you're the kind of person who believes classic literature is sacred and shouldn't be altered, don't go see Brideshead Revisited. But when you open your mind to what this team was trying to do, and for a budget reportedly under $20 million at that, there are some accomplishments in this film that make it worth seeing. What could have merely been a Cliff's Notes version of a classic novel tries to be much more and, surprisingly, succeeds more often than it fails.

Most notably, Thompson proves with a handful of scenes that she's still one of the best actresses alive. If Brideshead Revisited had come out at the height of Miramax-mania in the late '90, at the end of the year, Emma would be a lock for a supporting actress nomination. She's easily as worthy as Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love. Gambon is nearly as great, but in a much smaller role. As for the three leads, these are very complex roles and the nicest way to put it is that they're a bit out of reach for some of these young stars. I think Goode fares the best, simply because his character is so incredibly difficult for any actor to pull off. Charles is sometimes a hard fellow to root for, but Goode never plays him as sullen or aloof, two emotions that many actors would have tried to cram into this role. Atwell and Whishaw are never bad, but these are the parts that should be knocked out of the park and neither young actor fully connects.

Evelyn Waugh tried to do so much with Brideshead Revisited that it was probably much, much earlier to fit the material into an eleven-hour BBC mini-series. Is it foolish to take that much story and hack away at it until you get to a 130-minute film? Perhaps. But maybe purists who are already up in arms about the alterations will stop and realize that it's a testament to just how incredible Waugh's novel was that, even with so many cuts and alterations, so much quality remains. 

Rating: THREE BONES

Reviewed by Brian Tallerico (MovieRetriever.com Film Critic)

Release Date: July 25th, 2008

Rating: PG-13

Starring: Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, and Michael Gambon

Director: Julian Jarrold

Writers: Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock