Review: Brideshead Revisisted

This 2008 film from the United Kingdom is rated PG.

Rating-- 3 out of 5 stars

I really wanted to give this a higher rating because I truly loved this movie. It was great and fun to watch and the characters had great chemistry but I felt there was so much missing from it. Upon doing my research I realized it is based on a novel and a tv miniseries from 1981 that was 11 hours long (11 one hour episodes) so of course a lot of material had to be cut.

I did not fall in love with any of the characters because there was so much development that was lost in 0nly being able to be two hours long.

The movie is about a man who befriends a family and all the drama that ensures between the gay son falling in love with him while he falls in love with the gay man's sister. The relationships between the characters and the way religion and World War II affect each of the characters is amazing to watch.

But the true MVP of the movie is the house, Brideshead. it is amazing and it is essential to the entire movie. It reminded me of a book I once read called Plantation. No matter how much I learned about the characters the most important part of the book was the plantation. With this movie, the beginning was about the house, the middle was about the house and it ends with the house. Simply brilliant.

The actors were amazing-- Matthew Goode is so much fun to watch in every movie he is in. If you love him in this movie, I highly recommend a movie from last year called A Single Man-- BRILLIANT!!!! But the best actor in the bunch was Emma Thompson as the matriarch of the family. She is one of my favorite actress because she makes it look so easy-- look at least year's movie An Education. She had almost nothing to do and yet from everything I read came so close to earning an Oscar nomination. She is a vision to watch in everything.

I was really torn with the rating for this movie-- I would definitely give it a B if I gave letter grades but I don't- haha.

I would love to hear what any of you guys thought of this movie-- or if you even heard of it. LOVE IT? HATE IT? Indifferent?