Dear God, Please No

I have very few sentimental feelings attached with movies or television programs. Brideshead Revisited, however, is the one great exception. Perhaps I say this because everyone in my family loves it, but for me, the 11 part miniseries was the greatest thing ever to appear on television. And so, when I first heard that there was going to be a feature film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s book, I was worried.

What made Brideshead so great was its willingness to meander through the lives of the main characters, with entire one hour episodes in which nothing much happened. It was wonderfully absent of melodrama, and instead of pointlessly hyping the scenes with added on suspense and contrived importance, it was willing to quote entire passages from the book and allow the viewer to sit back and inhale both the great writing and the amazing period recreation of declining aristocratic England between the wars. And even though the material in the book - well dressed, super rich, hedonistic English aristorcats - could easily make a fun and visually sumptuous movie (think Gosford Park, Atonement, every Masterpiece Theater) such an approach would surely sully such a great piece of art.

And now, from Ross Douthat, comes the trailer for the movie. And my build-a-family-chapel-for- worshiping-Roman-Catholic god, it looks absolutely dreadful. Instead of getting a 11 part, two decade disquisition on Catholicism in England, the decline of the landed aristocracy or the temptations of wealth and privilege, we instead appear to have some horrible hybrid between Atonement,The Dreamers and every crappy romance film ever made. See the trailer and weep: