Bright Young Things

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Bright Young Things ★★½ 2003 (R)

Actor/director/writer Stephen Fry tackles literary satire with his adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 1930 novel, “Vile Bodies.” And if not precisely vile, those bodies are wicked indeed as seen through the everyman eyes of Adam (Moore), a poor aspiring novelist-turned-gossip columnist who wishes to marry superficial party girl Nina (Mortimer). Fry breezily tackles the jaded, flapper milieu of upper-class London between the wars that lends itself to glitter and eccentricity, embodied by feckless social butterflies (Woolgar) and drug-taking peers (the gentlemanly 94-year-old Sir John Mills doing a little coke in a cameo). These bored young things are bright only in the way they briefly shine before drab reality takes over. They (and the viewer) may as well enjoy it while they can. 106m/C DVD . Emily Mortimer, James Mcvoy, Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Fenella Woolgar, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent, Simon Callow, Jim Carter, Stockard Channing, Richard E. Grant, Julia McKenzie, Peter O'Toole, Stephan Campbell Moore; D: Stephen Fry; W: Stephen Fry; C: Henry Braham; M: Anne Dudley.

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