Stephan Elliott revives Noel Coward’s comedy across the class divide with this handsome jaunt into the British countryside.
Set at the tail end of the 1920s, Easy Virtue immerses us in a rarefied world of stiff upper lips and lavish stately homes.
John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) returns to his family’s stately pile with his new bride, sexy racing-car driver Larita (Jessica Biel) in tow. His sisters Hilda (Kimberley Nixon) and Marion (Katherine Parkinson) are impressed and his war-wounded father Jim (Colin Firth) seems charmed too.
But John’s neurotic mother Veronica (Kristin Scott Thomas) makes her disapproval obvious.
Larita tries her best to fit in but tensions quickly escalate, especially when Larita dares to fraternise with butler Furber (Kris Marshall), and Veronica blatantly tries to drive a wedge between the newly-weds.
Easy Virtue is easy on the eye and the ear, with plentiful laugh-out-loud moments, and an embarrassment of quips.
Some of Elliott’s music choices are eccentric to say the least, including Tom Jones’s Sex Bomb and Firth’s closing rendition of Billy Ocean’s 1980s hit When The Going Gets Tough.
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