Review of "Brideshead Revisited"

Ben Whishaw (left) as Sebastian Flyte and Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder

It's fascinating to see the doors blown off of the dusty old wardrobe for a gay man in a period film such as this. For ages gay characters in otherwise straight period romances have had to settle with being "coded gay"; in other words, the impeccably-appointed pink elephant in the room that everyone danced around but nobody addressed.

Gay characters were usually only acknowledged to be gay in "gay films" like Maurice, Another Country, or The Naked Civil Servant, which were themselves about being gay. In films where a gay character was part of the tapestry, he was generally painted in broad strokes as a sort of generic dandy or hissing queer, and that was that.

That's not to say that the well-worn signifiers aren't all in place here: Sebastian is very effeminate, rakishly thin (to the point of looking almost sickly), and always flamboyantly dressed (the above outfit is something I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find my Nana wearing). He's also a raging alcoholic, which has long been one of cinema's favorite codes for "self-loathing, repressed homosexual."  

But where other films (like last year's underwhelming and oddly dated Evening) would have been content to allow Sebastian to simply waste away when he wasn't glowering from windows and ranting drunkenly at family functions, here the filmmakers are more invested in the character and why it is that he's so magnificently unhappy.

Ben Whishaw as Sebastian

Sebastian's well-being is actually a topic of considerable discussion amongst the other characters, who seem completely aware of the fact that he is gay and developing a crush on his best friend. In fact, the alternately sincere and calculating Charles is the only one playing his cards close to the vest.

Though Lady Marchmain speaks plainly to Charles about her son's behavior and predisposition for the sinful life, Charles confesses nothing about his motives for allowing their close relationship to develop. When Sebastian's father's Italian mistress (played by Greta Scacchi) cautions Charles about allowing his "romantic English friendship" with Sebastian to go on too long due to its one-sidedness, his face is unreadable. While Sebastian's feelings for Charles are quite clear, Charles's reasons for accepting and returning the affections are not.

While these thinly-veiled implications of Sebastian's gayness have roots in the book, the most interesting moment in Charles and Sebastian's relationship is something unique to the film: while drunk on countless bottles of wine at twilight, Sebastian kisses Charles, and Charles does not resist. It's a perfectly logical culmination of the young men's relationship, but one that of course could never have made it into the pages of a novel in 1945, nor a faithful retelling of that novel.

But from the vantage point of 2008 it brings the relationship fully into the open and allows it to breathe, and in doing so raises the stakes considerably.

Goode, Hayley Atwell, and Whishaw at Castle Howard

And raised stakes is what this renovated Brideshead is all about; much like last year's sexed-up period drama Atonement, here the filmmakers are clearly looking to score a hit with a younger demographic not generally drawn to dusted-off romances from times past.

To further amp the intrigue, the filmmakers have also chosen to overlap the periods where Charles befriends Sebastian and his sister Julia, changing the book's episodic structure into a sort of romantic triangle, with Charles in the middle. The triangle brings Sebastian's feelings for Charles to a head and kicks the next phase of Ryder's dealings with the family into gear.