Australian Reviews: Seriously good fun!

Julie Rigg at ABC National conducted an extensive interview with director Stephan Elliott and co-writer Sheridan Jobbins. In the 'e-mail' section, she sums up the film by saying: "The most surprising entertainment of the week - a remake of Noel Coward's 1924 play Easy Virtue. It's delightful entertainment - and it's directed, of all people, by Stephan Elliott. What?"

Margaret Pomeranz At The Movies conducted an extensive interview with director Stephan Elliott It is plain from their conversation that she thoroughly enjoyed the film.

Fiona Sewell, reviewing 'Easy Virtue' for ABC Radio said: "It's no Priscilla but there are plenty of drama queens! There's also lots of witty dialogue, good performances and sumptuous costumes. This is good fun, with some serious moments thrown in. The soundtrack is terrific, with plenty of Noel Coward and Cole Porter, and a wonderful version of Sex Bomb."

Giles Hardie at the Sydney Morning Herald's on-line website said that "With a combination of Noel Coward's witty one-liners; great performances from a terrific ensemble; and inspired directing by Australian Stephan Elliott - this is a thoroughly enjoyable comedic and fun film. What's more - with genuine conflict between strong characters in a lavish setting there is both humour and drama to spare."



'Easy Virtue' was the closing night film at The Adelaide Film Festival. In reviewing the festival, several journalists also swept 'Easy Virtue' into their net of praise:

Michael Body writing for The Australian: "It's an adaptation of Noel Coward's Easy Virtue, that has Elliott back in the main game. It's a breezy and well-received film starring Kristin Scott-Thomas and the unlikely Jessica Biel."

Andrew Fenton at The Adelaide Advertiser: "Elliott's adaptation retains some of the tone and themes from the original play but it's considerably lighter and funnier, with a triumphant ending that transforms quite a dark scene into an audience pleasing, feel-good moment. "

And The Age's Paul Kalina wrote in a lengthy summary: "The star-studded Noel Coward adaptation Easy Virtue was the perfect choice for closing the festival on Sunday night. For starters, it brought the house down at its two concurrent, capacity screenings. Secondly, it is co-written and directed by Stephan Elliott, one of Australian cinema's most successful talents, despite not having even worked here for 12 years since Welcome to Woop-Woop.

Elliott, who adapted the Coward play with Sheridan Jobbins, takes a screwball approach to the material, a raucous period-set comedy in which the son (played by Ben Barnes) of a fading aristocratic family brings his new wife home to meet the mostly mortified family. She is, after all, older than him, a racing-car driver, an American and a divorcee whose name has appeared in the scandal sheets.

Kristin Scott Thomas, Jessica Biel and Colin Firth are pitch perfect in their respective roles, while the script deftly draws out the stinging attacks on upper-class values and marital codes. If anything, Elliott's perspectives as an outsider serve him well here. It's blisteringly funny at times, even when it resorts to a semi-slapstick routine involving an unfortunate Chihuahua."

'Easy Virtue' - a homecoming for director Stephan Elliott

'Easy Virtue' opened in Australia on March 12.

In the absence of any of the film's stars (normally a lightning rod for attracting attention to a film) the Australian press turned to director Stephan Elliott. He appeared on numerous TV and radio shows being interviewed by Kerrie Ann Kennerly, Jono & Dano, and Deborah Cameron all keen to discuss the skiing accident which effectively removed ten years from his working life.

In January, 2004, Stephan skied off piste in Courchevel, France. He struck a rock at speed and snapped his pelvis, crushed three lower vertebrae and dislocated his hip. Before he could be moved from the mountain, the weather deteriorated to the point that the rescue helicopter was unable to reach him. Instead he was ferried down by skiers, and later placed on a fire engine. At the bottom of the mountain, the fire engine was met by an ambulance supposedly bringing blood to the haemmorhaging Elliott - only in haste, the medial bag had been dispatched without anything in it. He was given 20 minutes to live, and lost consciousness believing he would die.

Instead he awoke to find himself in Albertville Hospital. He was subsequently air lifted to Britain, where surgeons were able to reconnect his pelvis using a radical new technique and 11 titanium plates. In a remarkable display of courage, he learned to walk again in record time - and 8 months later was back skiing in the Australian Alps.

During the 3 years it took him to regain full use of his legs he wrote the 'book' for the stage play of 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' and the script for 'Easy Virtue'.

Here is the story as told to David Richardson on 'Today Tonight':



There is also a digital sections of The Sydney Morning Herald, which posted this excellent interview with Elliott and Giles Hardie about the making of the film:



Newspapers picked up the story - many of the journalists including pocket reviews of 'Easy Virtue' into their articles:

In the national paper 'The Australian" Greg Callaghan described 'Easy Virtue' as, "a handsomely rendered take on the Noël Coward play of the same name, about an English aristocratic household in the ’20s, starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas, to be released on March 12. Say what? A period film for the former enfant terrible of the Australian film industry? “Yeah, but a period film with a rocket up its arse, as someone described it,” laughs the 44-year-old, who grew up in Sydney and wanted to become a director from the age of eight."

There was also an excellent and comprehensive article by Marion Hume, in the Weekend Magazine for The Australian (28th of February, 2009) and a very handsome photograph in the Sunday Magazine - neither of which have I been able to find on line. If you're able to send me a copy via the comments section - I'd be most grateful.

In Melbourne, The Age film reviewer Phillipa Hawker said: "The movie has a strong cast. Kristin Scott Thomas is the formidable, icy lady of the manor; Colin Firth her husband who returns from the harrowing experience of World War I with little enthusiasm for his role as master of the house; and Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian) their dashing, love-struck son. Jessica Biel - Justin Timberlake's girlfriend and a paparazzi magnet who was in The Illusionist and TV's 7th Heaven - plays Larita, a woman out of place. A glamorous young American who drives a racing car and embraces new art and literature, she is shunned by the family she has married into, and hemmed in by English country life.

After the screening of the film to the closing night audience of The Adelaide Film Festival, Andrew Fenton wrote in The Adelaide Advertiser:
"The original play was an attack on Victorian repression and hypocrisy masquerading as moral virtue, and Elliott's version also parodies the stuffy English aristocrats for being hopelessly out of touch and rejecting the encroaching modernity that Larita represents. Such an interpretation, though, could be accused of making a fun movie seem a lot more ponderous than it really is. For it may be set in 1920s England, but Easy Virtue isn't filled with stuffed shirts and stiff acting. Instead, it's full of zinging one liners and period-appropriate versions of modern songs like Car Wash and When the Going Gets Tough."

While at the Sydney Morning Herald, Elissa Blake reported, "Elliott says 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. The songs include a 1920s version of Car Wash and Tom Jones's Sex Bomb, co-produced by Elliott and record producer Marius de Vries. "We wanted to make it a modern film for young audiences," he says. "When we first screened it in [Britain], the younger crowd lit up like Christmas trees when the music kicked in.

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:

"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."

"A Warm Hand on Your Opening": The British Reviews

The current incarnation of "Easy Virtue", adapted from the original Noel Coward play, and starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ben Barnes, opened in Britain on November 7th, 2008.

Helen O'Hara at Empire, the major cinema magazine in Britain, summed up the film by saying that it had "a welcome sense of whimsy often missing in the costume genre."

Over at Channel 4, James Mottram opens his review by saying, "Coward's dark tale of an uptight family of British aristocrats - written when he was just 23 - is far removed from the wit-soaked comedies the elegant playwright became known for. Thus, Elliott plays fast and loose with the original, ironically turning it into something far more Coward-like along the way."

While the Daily Mail effused: "Like a vintage bottle of champers, Noel Coward’s deliciously funny comedy of manners has lost none of its sparkle in the 80-odd years since it was written. Fizzing with droll humour, pithy observations on the class system and some brilliantly acidic one-liners, it’s wall-to-wall wit on a grand scale."

There were numerous television reviews which incorporated interviews with their incisive and highly positive assessments of the film.

ITV 4 had this to say:


GMTV also gave the film a rave review, with this additional plug for the soundtrack

Trade Reviews for the film, "Easy Virtue"

The film, "Easy Virtue", directed by Australian Stephan Elliott, had its first public screening in the Elgin Theatre at the Toronto International Film Festival on the 7th of September, 2008. It was met with a standing ovation by the 1,500 people in the audience and the next day received excellent reviews in all the trade papers.

The Hollywood Reporter described it as: "An old Noel Coward play rediscovered and refurbished in a splendid production from Stephan Elliott."

Variety, that old doyen of the entertainment industry, felt that "A fine cast makes sure Noel Coward's champagne remains bubbly in "Easy Virtue," an effervescent entertainment that marks a welcome return for "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" director Stephan Elliott after a nine-year absence."

While relative newcomer, Screen Daily, lavished it with praise: "Handsome production values, a class-act cast and nimble direction from Elliott all combine to make the most of the material, transforming it into a surprisingly elegant, entertaining period piece."