L'Esprit s'amuse

Blithe Sprit

So many reviews on here fail to just get it, this play/farce was written by Noel Coward, in 1941 as an antidote to WW2 and presented on the West End stage. Noel Coward very much in the style of Oscar Wilde writes light whimsical repartee between the characters and it really is a celebration of language.

This movie, set in the 1937, just does not tick the boxes that light up modern audiences. This is a most unfair way to judge it, the plot was well executed, the acting crisp, with a light touch delivery was really quite splendid.

It your looking for a car chase, criminal masterminds and superheroes in spandex look elsewhere.

I'm giving this a jolly well done 7

Blithe Spirit, loosely based on Noel Coward's classic farce. We have Dan Stevens as a writer who's trying to turn his novel into a screenplay. He has an empty-headed wife (Isla Fsher) who swans about the estate. With friends, they go to see a show Madame Arcati (Judi Dench) is putting on, but her act goes wrong and she's exposed as a phony. Because Stevens is thinking a lot about his dead first wife (Leslie Mann) he gets Arcati to come to the house (a sprawling art deco thing) for a seance. Of course she summons the dead wife who, although it's 1937, has a #metoo sensibility.

Things turn slapsticky, and although the stars try hard, it doesn't work. One moment the ghosty wife can't slap Stevens because she's only ectoplasm but the next minute she can play a piano. Worst of all is the version of Arcati. Dench plays her as an aggrieved victim who's sham has been discovered and she's resentful. Bleh. The various Arcati's of film, TV, and stage, have generally played her as a swooping eccentric who's on the dotty side: Margaret Rutherford, Mildred Natwick, Ruth Gordon, Angela Lansbury, Penelope Keith.

This version plays like a sitcom, with the three main characters as madcaps and Dench's shuffling dud of a medium as an unfunny subplot.

If you liked the stage play then I would imagine you would have a few issues with this film, however if you are not aware of the play or the 1945 film based upon the play then you will probably like this version. I never really liked the original film so not that emotional about comparing the two but many prefer the first attempt.

Does this capture Noel Cowards wit, not really but that maybe no bad thing.

Enjoy it for what it is, a simple story with a lacklustre ending to while away some time.

The only levels on which this adaptation succeeds is that it opens the play up so it feels less theatrical. However the new script on retains only a scattering of the Noel Coward dialogue and the new stuff makes all the characters unlikable and tedious. They've even made Madame Arcati's character far less quirky and quite bland. Can't image who the makers think this will appeal to. Traditional Coward fans will hate it and it has nothing to recommend it to anyone else.

So much more could have been done with this. Some characters were poorly cast. It was underwhelming. The concept is good but it missed the mark in my opinion.