Brideshead Revisited

Like the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, this take on a literary classic is destined to be compared to the landmark TV serialisation that came before it. ITV's 1981 production of Evelyn Waugh's between-the-wars tale was memorably brought to life by Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons as the leads. Here Matthew Goode takes the role of Charles Ryder, a middle-class scholar who is drawn into the upper-class world of fellow Oxford undergraduate Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw). The two men develop a close bond over the course of a summer spent at Flyte's family home, Brideshead. However, their chaste relationship is thrown into jeopardy by Sebastian's erratic behaviour and Charles's growing attraction to Sebastian's sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). Becoming Jane director Julian Jarrold's film has much to commend it, particularly the performances of Whishaw (charming, camp, dangerous) and co-stars Emma Thompson and Patrick Malahide. And although the bookend sequences do feel rather like awkward appendages, the loss of lesser characters and changes to the book's structure shouldn't offend purists too much.