Brideshead Revisited

"Sounds like a horror movie doesn't it? But no, it's the latest British produced period drama, only this time sans Keira Knightley. Based on Evelyn Waugh's classic novel, it's the memoirs of Charles Ryder and his tale of love and innocence lost through dealings with the aristocratic family who own the Brideshead estate. Set between the two world wars, it's designed as an epic romance and lives up to half of that description while being less successful with the other."

"Offers lush and compelling drama drawn from Evelyn Waugh's beloved novel. Purists may blanch at the screenplay's changes to the source material's narrative fine points, but its spirit survives intact."

"The locations are all splendid and it is easy to understand how the lure of the lifestyle above him is a magnet to Charles. In the end we feel a bit like Charles, totally worn down, which may well have been the intentions of the filmmaker."

"Mr. Goode shows all the charisma of a stalk of boiled asparagus molded into the likeness of Jeremy Irons."

"Features some very good performances but few characters you would want to be in the same room with for more than five minutes - unless, of course, you were on your deathbed and in fear for your mortal soul."

"Whether the action is unspooling across Oxford or Venice or Morocco or on an ocean liner or in a gallery, nothing good or bad happens without a week's worth of art direction. Doric arches, ivy-grown walls, baize doors, gilt cornices, plastered vaults: No expense has been spared, and no BBC lover has been alienated."

"A second tilt at Waugh's classic attempts to be this year's Atonement but misses."

"The film's strengths are in Waugh's story and not so much in the particular spin of these filmmakers. Their decision to turn up the volume on the homosexual undertones between Sebastian and Charles feels like an unimaginative nod to our modern times."