I came to this sideways from the original novella, which was an absolute hoot. The film was a wonderful adaptation, pulling dialog directly from little Daisy's masterwork and adding to it in the same flavor. At once absurd and moving, it's the slightly wobbly story of an ordinary man who aspires to a higher station and the pretty girl desperate to hobnob among the nobility herself. They embark together, yet separately, and manage to achieve most of their ambitions, but not quite all they'd hoped. The characters are vivid and portrayed by top talent in Jim Broadbent, Lyndsey Marshal, Hugh Laurie, and Bill Nighy. They're all a bit dim-witted and bombastic, but you really feel for their ineptness. It's Broadbent's showaltho he has to fight off Nighy at times as the drunken, roguish earl. Simultaneously insightful (princes are ordinary people too) and oblivious (Ethel spends an awful lot of time alone with men she barely knows), The Young Visiters is both children's literature for adults and adult literature for children.
Review of The Young Visiters
