Blithe Spirit, Remade Again

Everyone loves a good haunted marriage, especially when the living spouse has subsequently remarried, like in Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, the highest grossing Brazilian film for decades (spawning the American remake, Kiss Me Goodbye). Noel Coward got there first, scoring a West End hit that became a classic David Lean film, before morphing into the moderately successful Broadway musical, High Spirits. Nobody sings “You’d Better Love Me” or any of those forgotten Broadway tunes, but the is plenty of old-fashioned farce in Edward Hall’s remake of Blithe Spirit, which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Charles Condomine is a slightly Bertie Wooster-ish mystery novelist, who still misses his late wife Elvira, even though he remarried the well-heeled Ruth, whose producer father is impatiently awaiting Condomine’s first screenplay. We soon learn he has not written a word since Elvira died, because she came up with all the best parts of his novels, like the plots, characters, and dialogue.

Condomine hatches an idea to break his writer’s block by hiring the discredited psychic Madame Arcati to conduct a séance in his home. It works better than he ever could have hoped when she inadvertently summons the spirit of the first Ms. Condomine, who is highly jealous of the second—so much so, she might take matters into her own spectral hands.

This Blithe Spirit does not exactly reflect Coward’s dry-martini wit, but it is a lightweight puff of door-slamming slapstick. A writer like Sir Julian Fellowes might have better channeled Coward’s urbane sophistication, but at least screenwriters Nick Moorcraft, Meg Leonard, and Piers Ashworth (there are three of them to adapt one play) capture the boozy upper-crust vibe.

Anglo-American Love: Easy Virtue

Sure, opposites attract, but can they stay together? Noel Coward put that question to the test with the marriage of the very British John Whittaker and his beautiful American wife Larita. While retaining all the acerbic critiques of the British polite society, director Stephen Elliott also throws in the odd modern flourish in his adaptation of Coward’s 1924 play Easy Virtue (trailer here), which opens in New York and Los Angeles this Friday, following its recent American premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

Widowed under mysterious circumstances, Larita is now a minor celebrity having fashioned a career as a glamorous race-car driver. Her new husband, the somewhat younger Whittaker, has never held a job in his life, nor has he ever stood up to his domineering mother. The two newlyweds could not be more dissimilar, encompassing differences of youth and experience, the landed gentry and the industrious middle class, and dare we say it, Old Europe and the New World, all of which were perfect grist for the Coward’s sly wit

Needless to say, Mrs. Whittaker, the severe family matriarch, never envisioned an American black-widow novelty-act as her daughter-in-law. Outwardly, she is scrupulously polite to Larita, but a Cold War of the classes is quickly joined between the two.

Whittaker’s meek sisters prove little more welcoming than their judgmental mother, but she does find some allies in the Whittaker manor. Of course, the servants love her and she also forms a fast friendship with Whittaker’s father. The moody Mr. Whittaker is definitely a member of the lost generation. The sole surviving member of the village regiment, he only reluctantly returned home after months spent deadening his pain with Parisian hedonism. He enjoys Larita’s plucky character and recognizes an inner sadness in her similar to his own.

Elliott shows a strong affinity for Coward’s drawing-room banter. While at times the comedic situations are bit too cute, he keeps the pace brisk and brings out surprising depth in the relationship between Larita and her new father-in-law. Colin Firth is pitch-perfect as Mr. Whittaker, mordantly droll but also genuinely poignant, providing the film’s emotional center.

Indeed, Virtue boasts an impressive cast, led by Jessica Biel. Thanks to her smart, vivacious performance as Larita, it is completely believable both the haunted father and shallow son would be attracted to her. The rigidly proper Mrs. Whittaker is the sort of ice-queen role Kristin Scott Thomas seems to have been born to play to the hilt, digging into her acidic dialogue with relish. However, Ben Barnes is a bit bland as John Whittaker, coming across as a watered down Bertie Wooster.

Virtue is an appropriately elegant production, featuring sheik costumes and an entertaining soundtrack of popular 1920’s songs with a few modern tunes re-recorded in period style by Marius de Vries mixed in for comedic effect. Though it is often wincingly pointed, Virtue has an infectious spirit that is quite appealing. Featuring fantastic work from Firth and perhaps Biel’s strongest screen performance to date, it is a thoroughly charming film. It opens this Friday in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Union Square Cinemas.