Easy Review

It should have been a play, plain and simple. And of course it was, in the beginning, based on a Noel Coward play. The movie today is "Easy Virtue," something that showed an odd sort of promise back in the trailer, but then ultimately failed in practice. I am not a theater dude, and my knowledge of Coward plays is limited, but to me they are predominantly dialogue driven, fast paced, and kind of manically/whimsically fast in a style reminiscent of PG Wodehouse (who might have actually come after Coward, not sure, but my analogy stands). The movie lacks all of this: the dialogue occasionally breaks free of the tedious pacing, but for the most part any comedy and whimsy are stifled by terrible directorial techniques, unnecessary camera work (focusing in and out, overly complicated shots, wild panning and crane work) and the inability of Jessica Biel to really act at all. Her accent was the one thing that really and truly managed to piss me off; there was one scene where she seemed to be deliberately overenunciating her S's and it pierced my brain like a knife. There's a bunch of other stuff I could call her on like lack of comedic timing, lack of compassion/empathy and that stuff, but there's no real need to, because the characters really have no greater meaning in the plot. The young English dandy who falls for Biel brings her home, and then there's some half-assed drama about losing the family estate, and then there's mad tension between the rest of the family (minus Colin Firth) and this American trying to steal the young dandy away, but none of it matters. In the end, all plot ends are left hanging, and although the ending is satisfying you really don't need to watch the entire movie, just the last twenty or so minutes for a nice dance scene and some good moments with the butler (the movie's other saving grace) and some nice music. In fact, that's a pretty solid recommendation: just catch the last twenty minutes on TV sometime, and you'll get everything out of this movie you need to. But the overall experience wasn't bad, just not good. The music is fine, and (as I keep saying) Colin Firth and the staff are amusing to watch. Still, it would have been infinitely superior to see it as the original play (assuming that the play doesn't have such a gimp ending) with Firth and the jazzy soundtrack.

And this is old news by now, but we've got another guest postie at the Tartar Sauce that you guys can check out at your leisure. Cool cool.