Easy Virtue
I wasn’t very familiar with Easy Virtue before I saw it. Aside from the cast and knowing it was a period film, I had anticipated it would be boring and artsy. I was pleasantly surprised.
Easy Virtue, a film I would describe as a Meet the Parents type comedy, is an adaptation of Noel Coward’s play of the same name.
John Whitaker, a young Englishman (Ben Barnes), and famed American race car driver and widow Larita (Jessica Biel) meet and marry on a whim. The two go to England to stay with John’s parents. The family is shocked to find John has married an American, and without notice, but all take it pretty well, except for John’s mother (Kristin Scott Thomas). What first starts as Larita’s fight for acceptance turns into a war of wits against her mother-in-law.
On the performance side, Jessica Biel came pretty close to ruining this movie for me. Every word that came out of her mouth made me cringe from its horrible delivery. Her performance was hard to watch initially but I grew used to it as the film progressed.
Everybody’s performance (aside from Biel) is very fun and a bit quirky. Colin Firth (Mama Mia, Bridget Jones Diary) gave a nicely subtle but charismatic performance. A favorite character of mine was Furber, the butler played by Kris Marshall. Marshall’s comedic timing is perfectly flawless in each of his scenes.
John’s sisters are wonderfully eccentric in their own respects. Hilda (Kimberly Nixon) is seemingly destined to never get married but wants to very badly. John’s other sister, Marion (Katherine Parkinson), forever awaits her obviously never returning boyfriend.
Easy Virtue has many great moments that will make you gasp in shock, laugh from the hilarity, or, sometimes, both. There are two scenes in particular that will both leave your mouth agape and have you laughing in the aisle. One involves a dog and the other the can-can. I’ll let your imagination run wild with that, but you’ll have to see it to believe it.
Also a cool little tidbit to this film: Easy Virtue has the greatest “say the movie title in the film” moment of any film I can recount. I usually find it really cheesy when that is done (like in Gone Baby Gone) but here it struck a slight smile across my face.
Easy Virtue has a great mix of characters and is a fun take on the classic battle of the in-laws tale. Watch Easy Virtue and be as pleasantly surprised as I was.
