Easy Virtue (2008) released 2009

The trailer for this was fun, and then, when I read writer/director Stephan Elliott's essay on choosing to adapt the Noel Coward play, I knew I wanted to see it. There have been some negative reviews but Jack & I found it delicious. Not a word was wasted, not an entendre undoubled. The photography was as luscious as Jessica Biel's (at 15 she was one of Peter Fonda's granddaughters in the excellent Ulee's Gold (1997), and we also liked The Illusionist (2006) a lot) Larita, the brassy American who turned an uptight 1920s British family upside down. Kristin Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and others) was wonderfully frosty as the matriarch, and Colin Firth (I liked Then She Found Me (2007), When Did You Last See Your Father (2007), both Bridget Joneses (2001 & 2004), Love Actually (2003), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), The English Patient (1996), and, of course, The BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice in 1995) was delightfully sardonic as her weary spouse. The English locations were eye-popping and Biel's wardrobe was fabulous, dahling--Charlotte Walter (A Mighty Heart (2007), Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)) just may get an Oscar nomination for the costumes. The bouncy soundtrack was performed by the Easy Virtue Orchestra (assembled for the movie), and, if you stay for the credits, your bonus is audio: the musicians' names are announced. They played tunes by Noel Coward, Cole Porter, as well as others from the period. But pay attention. The soundtrack also includes 1920s-style versions of Rose Royce's "Car Wash" from 1976, Tom Jones' "Sex Bomb" from 1999, and Billy Ocean's "When the Going Gets Tough the Tough Get Going" from 1985 (Biel sang the latter and Coward's "Mad About the Boy" and Ben Barnes, who played her naïf husband, warbled a few of the old chestnuts as well).