Easy Virtue

This could be the title of my biography. A cheap joke, I know.

Ben Barnes, the youthful heir to a country estate returns from the Riviera shortly after World War 1 with his American wife, Jessica Biel, much to the shock and horror of his snooty mother, Kristin Scott Thomas, and the indifference of his father, Colin Firth.

Born of significant gay influences, a Noel Coward story, Noel Coward and Cole Porter music and Director Stephan Elliott in charge, Easy Virtue could have been sparkling and edgy but a surprisingly large audience on a Saturday afternoon, overwhelmingly women aged more than 70, clearly was confident that no heart attack inducing material was likely.

So it proved. The film is replete with all the cliches of the British stiff upper lip, cultural clashes and the like and it camouflages all the nasty bits so as not to frighten the viewers. It is all rather pleasant and quaint.

Barnes and Firth provide the male eye candy; Barnes in particular being prettier than any of the female cast.