As one of the best assets humanity can boast to count among itself, Stephen Fry has delighted the world across a vast array of media, firmly establishing himself as one of my very favourite entertainers. How then, you ask, could it have taken me so unforgivably long to sample his Bright Young Things?
Having just penned the novel from which the film takes its name, Adam Symes is crestfallen to have it taken from him by customs as contraband literature. He returns to his life of yuppie indulgence (if indeed the film's '30s/'40s setting will permit the usage of that term) where he is variously delighted and disappointed by the tide-like fortunes of his financial situation, and the uncertainty concerning his ability to wed his beloved Nina.
Beginning with an expository reporter attempting to gain access to a lascivious and drug fuelled party, Bright Young Things launches us into the wild party lifestyle of its central cast of characters. The cocaine and absinthe combinations proclaimed by Nina as boring impress upon us the extent of the inter-war indulgence of the London youth. Things are somewhat slow to start, though the positively delightful and flowery banter of Fry's script keeps us both amused and entranced by the language of the era. Humour comes spouting from the supporting cast: the likes of Fenella Woolgar and Michael Sheen lend more laughs than the main acts themselves, who are generally left to present the dramatic front of the movie. Without doubt the film's best factor is the scene in which the hopeful Symes visits his father-in-law-to-be, a crackpot lunatic played splendidly by Peter O' Toole. As the running time finds itself elapsed, the drama begins to more firmly announce its presence to us, the stakes yet again raised and the outcome looking ever more bleak. The problem is that this never reaches a sufficient and acceptable zenith. No point of conclusion is reached wherein the characters seem to transform beyond the horrid snobs they began life before our eyes as, a shame given the potential this may have had. Not, that is to say, that the characters are unlikeable. In spite of their vices they grow upon us and become endeared to us, though we look on like disappointed parents, hopefully awaiting the time when they will learn the folly of their ways and grow up, a time the film never presents, or at least not expressly enough. I understand the novel on which the film is based takes this more desired route, the film's distance from this perhaps the product of Fry's wishes to carve his own story. In any case, despite the slight disappointment of the lack of redemption, the film is consistent in its humorous and dramatic elements, which blend together to give a decent slice of entertainment.
Almost certainly less good than it could and should have been, Bright Young Things feels like it fell at the last hurdle. That said, it was never at the front of the race. A perfectly competent debut from Mr Fry, one cannot disagree that the film holds its own.
