Easy Virtue

A film set in an English country house in the 1920s. John marries a woman he met at a race in France. Larita is American, a racing driver, and older than he is. He brings her home. The family learns of it without warning. His mother will not accept it. Mrs Whittaker does not want this daughter-in-law and starts a war on the first day. Her method is polite. She never raises her voice; she uses the seating at dinner, invitations, the neighbours and barbed sentences. Larita answers back. She does not give up easily and no balance is reached in the house. From there the film is a siege. A shooting party, a ball, a dog, a tango and a dinner. The father stands aside. Mr Whittaker came back from the war and has taken part in nothing since; he is the one who speaks least. Larita has a past. Something happened in America and the family is looking into it. What the narrative is interested in is not love but class: its whole conflict is whether a woman belongs in this house and who decides. The father's line is unexpected. An understanding forms between the two characters and the ending comes out of it. The tone is light but the writing is hard. The narrative moves as comedy, the lines are sardonic, and there is anger underneath. The source is Noël Coward's play from 1924. The text had been filmed before; Alfred Hitchcock made a silent version in 1928. The music is built from rearrangements of period songs and is deliberately anachronistic. Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth are in the cast. Stephan Elliott directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes period comedy and sharp lines. Who it is not for: anyone expecting fidelity; the adaptation noticeably alters the play and lightens its tone.