Easy Virtue

A new review from the desk of The Movie Snob

Easy Virtue (C-). What could be more up The Movie Snob's alley than a movie set in 1920s England and starring Kristin Scott Thomas (Gosford Park) as a snobbish Brit? Throw in Colin Firth (The Last Legion) as her war-damaged husband and Jessica Biel (The Illusionist) as the brazen American race-car driver who marries into the family, and the movie ought to work. But it just doesn't. None of the characters is very sympathetic--not even Firth's, who is clearly supposed to be. I guess we're also supposed to root for Biel's character, because she bothers to learn the servants' names and because Thomas's matriarch treats her so poorly, but I didn't find her character likeable either. Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), who plays Biel's husband, is a total cipher. And, as my movie-going compadre pointed out, Biel's dramatic speech at the end seems modern to the point of anachronism. I wonder whether it is really part of the original Noel Coward play. I doubt I will ever bother to find out. Skip it.