Newsnight Review - vs - Graham Norton

Some reviews are so intelligently considered they fulfill a second purpose as acting as a trailer and synopsis. This is such a review. It's by far the best I've found so far for "Easy Virtue"...

...while Graham Norton's is the funniest!



...which also had this perfectly silly addendum:

Rome Film Festival: UN MATRIMONIO all'inglese

"Easy Virtue" premiered in Italy at the Rome Film Festival under the title "UN MATRIMONIO all'inglese". There were several reviews during the festival from Reuters - in particular this one, which said; "ROME (Reuters Life!) - "Easy Virtue," a bubbly comedy based on Noel Coward's play about English high society in the 1920s, has emerged as a hot favorite to win the best film award at the Rome festival, which winds up on Friday.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera called the film, a British production directed by Australian Stephan Elliott, "a little gem" and gave it 3-1/2 stars out of four -- its highest marks for a movie screening in the main 20-title competition.

La Repubblica newspaper also tipped the film as a winner for its witty dialogues, praising actress Jessica Biel's performance as a glamorous and free-spirited American woman storming into the lives on an old-fashioned English aristocratic family."

It opened wide to rave reviews - the most spectacular of which was in La Repubblica on the 9th of January 2009. Now, my Italian is not nearly good enough to translate - so you'll have to take my word on this: It's very, very good.

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NELLE SALE / Dopo il successo al Festival di Roma, arriva la commedia "Un matrimonio all'inglese": protagonista, una Biel più scatenata che mai... Jessica la sexy emigra in Inghilterra tra gag, humor e risate intelligenti

di CLAUDIA MORGOGLIONE

UN MATRIMONIO all'inglese è una bella cura cinematografica contro il malumore, la depressione, le brutte notizie che arrivano dal mondo. Perché è brillante, divertente, ricco di gag, di intelligenza, di humor, di personaggi irresistibilmente simpatici. A partire dalla protagonista, Larita, oggetto del desiderio di tutti i maschi del film e causa di scompiglio in un sonnacchioso villaggio inglese a causa del suo matrimonio con un nobile rampollo del luogo. E a incarnarla, in tutto il suo sex appeal, è la diva americana Jessica Biel. Che qui, forse per la prima volta, mostra di essere non solo bella, ma anche brava.

Ambientato all'inizio dei ruggenti anni Trenta, in una campagna britannica immobile eppure affascinante, il film - diretto da Stephan Elliot, noto soprattutto per il cult Priscilla la regina del deserto - prende le mosse proprio dal ritorno a casa del giovane e ingenuo John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) nella residenza di famiglia. In cui imperversa la sua insopportabile madre (Kristin Scott Thomas), mentre il padre (Colin Firth) sembra relegato a un ruolo marginale. Il problema è che il giovane non si presenta da solo, ma con una moglie nuova di zecca: Larita, appunto. Misteriosa ragazza americana, reduce da una gara automobolistica, anticonformista e insofferente alle regole. Tutte caratteristiche che la fanno odiare dal primo istante dalla suocera, che scatena contro di lei una guerra senza esclusione di colpi. E dalle conseguenze imprevedibili.

Una vicenda raccontata con un senso dell'umorismo, del dialogo intelligente e ironico, come raramente si vede al cinema. E che, del resto, ha origini nobili: il film è tratto infatti da una piéce giovanile del commediografo inglese Noel Coward. Già trasposta sullo schermo, in gioventù, da Alfred Hitchcock. Ma il regista ha negato che la sua opera, malgrado la sua accuratissima ambientazione d'epoca, possa essere considerata in qualche modo datata: "Non volevo girare una pellicola in costume - ha dichiarato - ma un film moderno, per un pubblico moderno". Un risultato raggiunto, almeno a giudicare dagli applausi ricevuti durante l'ultimo Festival di Roma.

Quanto alla Biel, si tratta di una interpretazione a tutto tondo, che la lancia alla grande come attrice. E lei ne è consapevole: "Come interprete ho trovato molto eccitante il personaggio di Larita - ha detto - perché la capivo. Anche se io nella realtà sono più dolce: proprio per questo, è stata una bella sfida".

"Easy Virtue" sounds good: Reviews for the Soundtrack

"Easy Virtue" has an impressive musical pedigree. The orchestrated score has been composed by Marius de Vries. He has worked on several film scores - notably "Romeo & Juliet", "Moulin Rouge" and "Eye of the Beholder". He is, however more famous as a record producer whose enormous body of work includes producing albums for Bjork, Annie Lennox, Josh Groban, Massive Attack and Madonna's "Ray of Light". With that in mind it's no wonder that the album for the film "Easy Virtue" is fresh, intelligent and anarchic.

In an interview published in The Age newspaper DeVries says: "I've never approached movie music in a traditional way," DeVries says. "The conventional process of underscoring a script is something that a lot of people do better than I, and I have no wish to compete with them. It only really makes sense for me to get involved in movies where there is something a little bit different going on."

sanity.com have reviewed the album saying: "The sparkling and swinging Easy Virtue soundtrack includes 17 tracks taken from the film, all of which have been re-recorded. It features popular hits from the 20s and 30s such as "When You're Smiling" and "Let's Misbehave" as well as modern day tracks such as "Car Wash", "Sex Bomb" and "When the Going gets Tough" (which have been made to sound like they are from the same era). There are several new compositions written by Marius de Vries including a dramatic Tango.

Marius de Vries has assembled a fantastic team of musicians for the album including Dave Rowntree (the drummer from Blur), Mike Smith (keyboard and sax player for the Gorillaz and The Good Bad and The Queen), Chris Storr (Trumpeter for Jools Holland), violin player Sophie Solomon from Oi Va Voi, and internationally renowned pianist, Jim Watson.

Pop sugar single out the music for special attention "The wonderful composer Marius de Vries cheekily mixes authentic songs from the period with contemporary tunes given a Cole Porter-esque arrangement (this version of "Sex Bomb" has to be heard to be believed!) It's an interesting device, as is the use of the cast's own singing voices (Jessica is surprisingly good.)

Sky movies gave the album, and the film, a four star review saying "Music supremo Marius De Vries puts 20s-style tweaks on contemporary classics - Car Wash, Sex Bomb, Billy Ocean’s When the Going Gets Tough - to accompany more time-honoured ditties by Coward and Cole Porter, it’s a refreshingly crisp and accessible affair. Easy on both eye and ear, this jaunty little number has many virtues to commend it."

The sound track and album were co-produced by the film's director Stephan Elliott. In an interview in The Sydney Morning Herald, he is quoted as say that period films have always "bored the hell out of him" so he livened things up by turning the original melodrama into a fast-paced comedy with an updated soundtrack."When we first screened it in [Britain], the younger crowd lit up like Christmas trees when the music kicked in."

One of the most startling features of the film is the amount - and quality - of singing by the leading actors. The title track - "Mad About the Boy" is sung by Justin Timberlake's girlfriend Jessica Biel, revealing for the first time on film the breadth and appeal of her beautiful smoky singing voice.

The video of her singing live in the studio as seen here on YouTube, also serves as a love letter for fans of Ben Barnes.



It's possible that only his fans are aware that Ben Barnes had a fully fledged (if short lived) career as a pop singer in the band Hyrise. They were second place runners up in the UK pre-selection for The Eurovision Song Contest in 2004 losing out to James Fox who went on to achieve 16th place. In "Easy Virtue" Barnes sings on several numbers - both in the context of the film and as a part of the soundtrack. Perhaps the most outstanding is Noel Coward's "A Room With A View".



The sound track has been released through the Decca label and is available for on-line purchase at Amazon and play.com among others.

Although this is not strictly a 'review' it is interesting to note that Graham and Tolly who are making a bit of a name for themselves as "Addictive TV" have chosen to create a 'mash up' of the film. For the fuddy duddies out there, a mash up is where a DJ takes two tunes and 'mashes' them into a brand new song. Addictive TV take that idea one step further by cutting the image and soundtrack from movies to suit their new 're-mixed' rhythms. Before they did it for "Slumdog Millionaires" they produced this one for "Easy Virtue."