Unable to write, Charles becomes fixated on the memory of his glamorous but headstrong late wife Elvira (Leslie Mann), whom he regarded as his muse but, it is later revealed, contributed more than just inspiration to his body of work. And by the end of the picture, very little of the opulent, extensive backdrop is left unchewed by Stevens, whose performance is pitched at the pantomime end of the spectrum. He shares with his second wife, Ruth (Isla Fisher), a sprawling Art Deco edifice (the film uses the imposing exteriors of modernist gem Joldwynds in Surrey), with manicured gardens and a dedicated writing folly on the far side of the lawn. Stevens takes the central role of Charles Condomine, a writer wrestling with lack of inspiration as the deadline for the screen adaptation of one of his novels looms ever closer. However the clumsiness of execution in other aspects may hamper the film’s prospects. The presence in the cast of Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens might be a selling point (director Edward Hall, making his feature directing debut here, is also a Downton alumnus), likewise the assertively Art Deco production design. It’s a film which will work best with an older audience, a demographic which is traditionally slower on the uptake with streamed releases. Originally due to be released by Studiocanal in the UK during 2020, following its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, Blithe Spirit was subsequently acquired by Sky and will be shown in the UK and Ireland on Sky Cinema.
Very little of the opulent, extensive backdrop is left unchewed by Dan Stevens, whose performance is pitched at the pantomime end of the spectrum But the problems run deeper in this energetic but scattershot version of a property which might have been best left to rest in peace.
This is in part due to the age of the source material – Coward’s brand of urbane casual elitism is rather past its sell-by date.
But Coward’s once spry wit now feels arthritic his pithy one-liners thud, inert, as lifeless as the first Mrs Condomine (before the inept intervention of Judi Dench’s bumbling Madame Arcati). Out in the US Feb 19.Noel Coward’s 1941 play, already filmed in 1945 by David Lean, and starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Rutherford, is disinterred once again. Streaming in the UK on Sky Cinema Jan 15. It’s handsomely put together, but just not as funny as it could be. Of course, a film can deviate from its source material, but this take doesn’t fundamentally make the story any deeper or richer. Here, pitched closer to the tone of a bog-standard costume drama, it never reaches the hysterical silliness of the play. But Blithe Spirit is meant to be a farce. There’s fun to be had with Dan Stevens’s self-regarding Charles, Leslie Mann’s huskily venomous Elvira, and Isla Fisher‘s perky Ruth. The source material is basically a very funny but very silly battle-of-the-sexes comedy, wherein Arcari accidentally summons Charles’s vampish late first wife Elvira, much to the dismay of his very much still alive second wife, Ruth.īut Hall’s approach plays it too straight. Dench is given a greatly expanded role, and she breathes soulful, battered life into the old psychic, who frustrated novelist Charles invites over to hold a séance.īut in showing bittersweet glimpses of Aracti’s life outside of Charles’s dining room, Dench exacerbates the main problem with Hall’s adaptation. On stage Arcati is normally a bit of fun for lady actors of a certain age, who get to chew up the scenery preposterously for two scenes and then have a bit of a lie down for the rest. Well, this is pretty much as grim a moment as its homeland has faced since the ’40s: can director Edward Hall’s new film of Blithe Spirit – starring Judi Dench as dodgy spiritual medium Madame Arcati – cheer us all up again? It’s kind of unlikely, though it does at least offer chuckle or two.ĭench is both its saving grace and Achilles heel. Noël Coward’s supernatural stage farce about a man literally haunted by his ex-wife gave him a walloping great West End hit at the height of World War II, and begat a classic David Lean film version just as the conflict was winding down.
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