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Brideshead Revisited is one of the great English novels of the 20th century. The story is wound through with regret for a time that has passed, opportunities lost and the pointless ruin that some people seem compelled to make of their lives. It is elegiac in tone and stately in pace and grand in its use of language.
What Brideshead Revisited is not, however, is a sexed-up tale of betrayal, forbidden love and thwarted romance, although those themes are present in the novel to an extent. I can only imagine, having watched the trailer, that people unfamiliar with the book or the magnificent 1980s British TV series (which remains the standard to which every Masterpiece Theatre series aspires) will either be very surprised by the movie itself or Miramax has fucked it up extraodinarily.
Given Julia's presence in the Venetian scenes, I tend to think the latter, alas.
What Brideshead Revisited is not, however, is a sexed-up tale of betrayal, forbidden love and thwarted romance, although those themes are present in the novel to an extent. I can only imagine, having watched the trailer, that people unfamiliar with the book or the magnificent 1980s British TV series (which remains the standard to which every Masterpiece Theatre series aspires) will either be very surprised by the movie itself or Miramax has fucked it up extraodinarily.
Given Julia's presence in the Venetian scenes, I tend to think the latter, alas.