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Easy Virtue
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 13 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance
Written by:
Sheridan Jobbins
Stephan Elliott
Directed by: Stephan Elliott
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 22, 2009
DVD: September 15, 2009
Running Time: 93 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Language(s): English | French
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content, brief partial nudity, and smoking throughout
Starring Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Kimberley Nixon, Katherine Parkinson, Kris Marshall, and Christian Brassington
The twenties have roared... the thirties have yet to swing. John Whittaker, a young Englishman, falls madly in love with Larita, a sexy and glamorous American woman, and they marry impetuously. However when the couple returns to the family home, his mother Mrs. Whittaker has an instant allergic reaction to her new daughter‐in‐law. Larita tries her best to fit in but fails to tiptoe through the minefield laid by her mother‐in‐law. Larita quickly realizes Mrs. Whittaker’s game and sees that she must fight back if she’s not going to lose John. A battle of wits ensues and sparks soon fly. Mrs. Whittaker manipulates every situation to undermine her, while Larita remains frustratingly calm and engineers sassy counter attacks. Before long, Mrs. Whittaker’s manipulation starts to work on John and Larita feels their love is in danger of slipping away. In a grand finale, where the secrets from Larita’s past are revealed, she finally makes a break for freedom from the suffocating house...(Sony Classics)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Eye of the Beholder TheAdventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Jessica Biel has great fun with the American adventuress, while Kristin Scott Thomas is truly scary as her nemesis and mother-in-law.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
An effervescent entertainment that marks a welcome return for "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" director Stephan Elliott after a nine-year absence.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ella Taylor
Quick! Noël Coward--sage or supercilious bitch? No matter where you stand, Stephan Elliott's deliciously cheeky screen adaptation of one of the satirist's lesser-known jabs at the British upper crust will charm your pants off.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
Elliott has created a wonderfully rich battle for propriety in Easy Virtue. The humor might sting, but the pain is worth the pleasure.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
In its cold-eyed assessment of the English aristocracy Easy Virtue has none of the lurking Anglophilia found in Merchant-Ivory movies.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Director Stephan Elliott uncorks a rare vintage of laughs tinged with heartache.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The dialogue has an edgy wit, although it has no ambitions to be falling-down funny. Here is the Odd Couple formula applied in a specific time and place that make them feel very odd indeed.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
It's a pleasure to watch such top-notch actors deliver Coward's sparkling wit.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Sure, there's a plot, but it's a secondary element to the lines the actors deliver. Only Oscar Wilde has the same bite. Fortunately, Elliott understands this, which makes Easy Virtue go down smoothly.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The picture itself is only mechanically breezy.
Read Full Review >Empire Helen O'Hara
While its tone occasionally wavers and there are some wobbly performances, this has moments of true lightness, and a welcome sense of whimsy often missing in the costume genre.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
This may have been fertile grounds for satire in 1925, when Noel Coward's drawing-room melodrama Easy Virtue debuted on the stage, but by now this film version feels rather done.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Easy Virtue has aspirations to be much more than a comedy. It wants to flay, if only with a penknife, the entire British class system.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Anything but light on its feet. It lumbers instead of dazzles, drags where it should feint and jab.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Full of forced jocularity and drawing-room hissy fits, with its cast parading around in vintage threads and antique cars, Easy Virtue is a close-to-insufferable souffle based on the 1925 Noel Coward play.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Dan Zak
Blame the wafer-thin adaptation by Sheridan Jobbins and director Stephan Elliott. What might've been a scrumptious, chocolatey dessert of a movie -- a Noel Coward delite -- is instead a scoop of lemon ice, not filling, faintly sweet and mostly water.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
If you're looking for a simple-minded farce with campy overtones, this 2008 feature might be your dish.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Easy Virtue needs a strong center to justify its celebration of American effrontery, and Biel lacks that prideful edge.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
We could all use a little more Noel Coward in our lives. But the fizz falls flat in Stephan Elliot's adaptation of a lesser-known play, which, while blithe enough, has little spirit to speak of.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
iIf you can ignore a ridiculously overbearing soundtrack - a big if - the film's a pleasant bauble. Still, those coming in cold may be forgiven for thinking they've wandered into "Atonement" remade as a farce.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
The upside of a Coward-powered letdown is that I had plenty of time to contemplate one particularly improbable fact about Easy Virtue: that it had a previous incarnation on film. As, of all things, a silent picture.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Shot in country fields and interiors of fading Georgian glory, Easy Virtue has enough traces of Coward's wit to keep you hoping for the first hour or so, but then the film collapses under the weight of too many misguided innovations.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
It may tell you everything you need to know about Easy Virtue to note that Hollywood hottie Jessica Biel receives top billing over veteran Brit thesps Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Easy Virtue may be a bauble, as Larita's described at one point, but Coward's examination of hypocrisy demands real skill. The style should suggest "whipped cream with knives," as Stephen Sondheim once described "A Little Night Music." Elliott's film is more like curdled milk with a spork.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A crass, heavy- handed and -- most unforgivably -- largely laugh-free adaptation of The Master's infrequently revived 1924 comic melodrama.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 13 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jay H gave it a6:
Flawed and a bit stagy, but quite entertaining. The cast is good. The art direction and costumes are memorable. Good story and score. Colin Firth is the best in the cast.
Tony O gave it an8:
The critical reviews of this one puzzled me a bit with their overwhelming condescension. Luckily the punters are more tuned in to what this really is - which is a pretty well done period piece, based on a fairly savage piece of social critique by a master of cynical stagecraft - Noel Coward. Plus, in its favour, it is sometimes hilarious, and has a number of set pieces that work - and admittedly, a couple that don't. Nevertheless, I liked this a lot better than many of the recent attempts to mount period 30's dramas- eg Brideshead Revisited, or the numerous Poirot and Miss Marple revisions. The movie wasn't just a wallow in nostalgia, for one thing - and some of the emotional issues and conflicts certainly went beyond the usual facile mugging by UK character actors. And personally, I liked the soundtrack, though I can see why some people might find it a bit obtrusive. The key performances by Jessica Biel and Kristen Scott-Thomas are a hoot , and sometimes quite touching as well. The whole thing was surprisingly entertaining.
Vickie M gave it an8:
The story was a little simple, but the acting more than overcame this slight weakness. Excellent performances from Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin FIrth, and Jessica Biel (a surprise). The setting in an old English country house was terrific - the vintage interiors and costumes were wonderful.
dwight c gave it a7:
An authentic comedy, realistic slapstick and a beautiful setting.
Richard W gave it an8:
Captures Coward's cynicism and sharp humor in a great cast -- Scott Thomas, Firth, Biel -- marked down by Director's strange musical intrusions.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Surprisingly entertaining - I grinned from start to finish. A nice Saturday afternoon diversion - with perfect casting.
