Bright Young Things in Vile Bodies
March 11th, 2007
Bright Young Things had a lot of potential: it’s directed by Stephen Fry (of whose acting and poetry-pedantry I’m a fan), it has David Tennant in it, and it’s based on a book by Evelyn Waugh, the British satirist/Catholic convert/novelist.
Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t really work. I haven’t read the novel (which was published as Vile Bodies, though Waugh’s original title was in fact Bright Young Things), so I can’t make my own comparisons between the two: for an extensive and interesting commentary along those lines, check out an article by Alan Dale on BlogCritics.
Internal to the movie itself, there are some big tone problems. First of all, from what I read, it looks like Waugh’s novel is pretty pure satire; Fry’s movie seems to expect us to have sympathy for these vapid, decadent, aristocratic characters, but it doesn’t give us any reason to do so. Adam, the protagonist, does extraordinarily stupid things that you wouldn’t be surprised to see coming from Bertie Wooster (e.g., “let me turn over the 1,000 pounds I’ve just won to a drunken stranger, on his promise that he’ll place the money on a winning horse), but which really don’t work for this supposedly intelligent, though somewhat lost, young writer.
(By the way, for those who don’t know, I should mention that Fry played Jeeves to Hugh Laurie’s Wooster in the great 1990s BBC show “Jeeves and Wooster.” Fry is clearly familiar with portrayals of the between-the-wars decadence of British youth.)
In some ways, once the “bright young things” of society begin dropping like flies to suicide, mental illness, and arrest for “indecency” (i.e., homosexuality), the movie picks up steam. But, again, we’re confused about whether we should feel sorry for them. The music and the screenplay tell us to sniffle a bit—but we’ve been given no previous reason to like them.
Once everyone else drops out, we’re left with penniless Adam and his hopeless love for Nina, who by now is engaged to the much richer Ginger Littlejohn (David Tennant, in a moustache. A moustache! Why? The moustaching of David Tennant may be the greatest of this movie’s sins. Ahem.) But, fortunately, World War II starts, so Adam can go off and shoot people rather than mope. It seems like at this point we’re to think, “Aha! War is a force that gives us meaning,” but it doesn’t really work that way in the movie—or in life, I might add, though the decadent British aristocracy did sort of vanish after the war years.
War doesn’t really seem to change Adam or anyone else, and then he gets to come home and have a happy ending. It’s all wrong. He should either have an absolutely pointless ending (as befitting a satire) or a redemptive one (like in Brideshead Revisited, Waugh’s 1945 novel)—none of this undeserved happiness business!
Since Waugh published Vile Bodies in 1930, the movie’s ending is quite obviously different from the book’s. Apparently the book does also end with Adam on a battlefield in an apocalyptic sort of war, but it seems like the book sticks to the “pointless” angle rather than mucking about with genres.
Interestingly, 1930 was a huge turning point in Waugh’s life. His cheating wife divorced him—and he converted to the Catholic church. He was certainly already thinking in spiritual terms when he wrote Vile Bodies, though, for the title comes from Philippians 3:20-21 (in the King James Version): “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
The title may be the only hint of redemption present in the novel, but I’m guessing that’s preferable to the alternately sentimental and satirical muddle of the movie. But, hey, the movie made me want to read the book! And it’s making me wonder how pure, harsh satire functions in our culture’s spirituality. Does it exist today in Christian writing? If so, where?
P.S. The movie’s rather flamboyant homosexual is played by Michael Sheen, most recently seen on big screens as Tony Blair in The Queen. Since that’s the only other role I’ve seen him in, I have to admit, I spent much of the movie thinking, “Tony Blair, why are you wearing eyeliner?” And, of course, “David Tennant, WHY are you wearing a MOUSTACHE?”
P.P.S. Fry’s movie may not be great, but his recent book The Ode Less Travelled is the funniest (and therefore most helpful) guide to reading and writing poetry that I’ve ever encountered.
3 Comments Add your own
1. icelimbo | March 11th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Evelyn Waugh is one of the few 20th Century Catholic writers I haven’t read much from, but the one thing I did read, last summer, was Vile Bodies, because I wanted to see the film (primarily because Fry directed it). While I was housesitting for some friends in September, Bright Young Things was archived in their TiVo, so I finally got a chance to watch it. I agree with your sentiments almost completely (David Tennant in a moustache doesn’t evoke shock and horror), and, like you, I wondered why I was supposed to be caring about Fry’s characters. Bertie Wooster we care for because, beneath all the bungling, he’s a decent chap who tries to do the right thing. This is what’s missing from Bright Young Things. In fact, the only part of the movie that I felt really did work well was showing Agatha’s foibles (like the party and morning after at 10 Downing) and downfall (the hospital room scenes are as good as the ghastly and raw prose Waugh writes of Agatha’s final moments before going completely mad). That, and Fry understands homosexuality, and homosexuality in British culture, better than Waugh does, as least in the terms that VB/BYT sets out. The ending of BYT feels totally wrong, of course. In the book, Adam ends up on a desolate battlefield, in the back of a car that can’t go anywhere (the road has been blown up) with the guy to whom he gave the 1000 pounds (now a major in the army) and Chastity (one of the spiritual choir girls from the beginning). The major is drunk and lecherous towards the girl and the girl giggles and let him approach her, and Adam closes his eyes as the bombs start falling all around them. To call it bleak is a complete understatement.
I would also be interested in seeing if there are any writers nowadays who are Christians and write satire that ends so pointlessly. On the one hand, it would be hard to write an ending that is so without hope if one is a Christian (I recall Lewis’s quote about how Screwtape was the hardest thing he ever wrote because he had to get into the mindset of a character who had no hope). On the other hand, a Christian should know of the world’s true fallen nature in a more prescient way than most other people and be able to write about that in an honest, true way (Flannery O’Connor is always my favorite example of this). And then from the third hand, such a book would never be published by an officially Christian press, and many churches would never want their congregants to read such a book. If I were the writer of that kind of book, I’d actually avoid the Christian subculture completely. Biting wit, of the Chesterton kind of even parts of the Twain kind, can be incorporated into a Christian faith and worldview. When satire is about spurring people on to considering right and wrong, good and bad, then it can be useful. But when satire is about bitterness and mocks for the fun of mocking, like the other parts of Twain, for example, then that’s pretty difficult to incorporate into a Christian viewpoint. Satire is such a fine line to walk anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if most Christians simply don’t want to try. But if you run across any that do try, let me know. And let me know if you do read Vile Bodies. It is a quick read, actually, and every so often Waugh has a killer observation on the society that he is satirizing. It is certainly a grim kind of satire, but that’s not a drawback in the context of characters who are so entirely a mix of hedonism and indifference.
2. theotter | March 12th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Thanks! Glad to have response from someone who has read the book–and from someone whose taste I trust!
Great observations about satire–pretty much what I think, too. A Christian writer’s compassion should extend to his or her characters, I think–at least usually. But characters in satire aren’t really characters, I suppose–and satire can be written with compassion for readers, even if it’s harsh. I think Twain is a great example of both sides of the satire line: ultimately loving satire in Huckleberry Finn, bitter satire in No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger–so bitter that it made me feel physically ill when I read it.
My list of books I want to read is getting so long! Soon, soon . . .
3. Jillian | March 12th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
*chuckles* As I learned at Wheaton, I have no ability to read satire responsibly. I always end up feeling sorry for the wrong people and typically, completely miss the point the story is trying to make. Or I feel distressed on behalf of the abused, hopeless persons and want to change what happens. Which is why I should never direct a book-to-movie about satire or I’d muck it up.
I am, however, intrigued by the title changes.
I’d never read a book called Bright Young Things. And I’d be off put by a movie named Vile Bodies. But switch them around, and it’s win/win. Oddly enough.
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