A poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to World War II.A poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to World War II.A poignant story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in England prior to World War II.
- Awards
- 11 nominations
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDame Emma Thompson threatened to quit this movie if the producers persisted in pushing actress Hayley Atwell to lose weight. Atwell said that Harvey Weinstein even insulted her over lunch by saying: "You look like a fat pig on-screen. Stop eating so much."
- GoofsAfter the dinner, at which Charles first meets Lady Marchmain, the family go to pray in the private chapel. The ladies, as Roman Catholics, would have covered their heads with a scarf or a veil.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Charles Ryder: [internal monologue] If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name: Charles Ryder. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be. On second thought, one emotion remains my own. Alone among the borrowed and the second-hand, as pure as that faith from which I am still in flight: Guilt.
It's for the most part a fairly tragic story of a young man, Charles (Matthew Goode, charming and suave but also subtle and down-beat, a really fine turn), who enrolls at Oxford and meets a meek/'fey' guy named Sebastian, and through him he's introduced (reluctantly in point of fact) to Sebastian's family, including his sister Julia, and his very cold and strident mother (Emma Thompson). Sebastian really wants Charles all for himself - it's a friendship that goes just a nose-hair's length into admitting homosexuality but never really goes that far despite all appearances to the contrary - but he becomes apart of the fold, and as well falling deeply in love with Julia against 'other' wishes (mostly the matriarch's over Charles's religion).
There's a lot of the fragility of the bourgeois on display here, the arrogance and detachment that's shown very closely by the director for maximum effect. Unlike a Resnais he's not about to get too experimental with the camera; he's a careful craftsman more often than not, allowing for just enough wonderment of the whole Brideshead atmosphere to really sink into how it could be a double-edged sword of perception. And as is bound to happen with material this sprawling (at one point time jumps back 10 years, then ahead 4 years, until we kind of know where we are), a lot seems to be cut out. While it altogether makes a coherent and entertaining enough picture, I wonder how much more of a benefit this would make as an epic, where we are absorbed more fully with the Oxford school or Charles and Sebastian or even the parents (who, thankfully, are played wonderfully here by cold-as-ice Thompson and fascinatingly guilt-ridden and subtle Michael Gambon), or how the wealth structure even works here.
Indeed, I found myself not so much involved with the Charles/Sebastian stuff, even as it's fairly well-acted and well-shot enough, as I was with the themes of religion raised in the picture. This caught me off guard and hinted at something deeper being expounded upon. Yet, again, we get just tastes of what's offered more than likely in the original text, tastes that are powerful like a 'last-rites' argument, and the tortured state of being raised from the cradle with an intense, overbearing Catholic conscience.
- Quinoa1984
- Sep 16, 2008
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- 慾望莊園
- Filming locations
- Bahia Palace, Marrakech, Morocco(hospital)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $20,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $6,432,256
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $339,616
- Jul 27, 2008
- Gross worldwide
- $13,451,186
- Runtime2 hours 13 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1