Such a frustrating disappointment

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This comedy set in a WWI backdrop also has an orchestra soundtrack highlighting era greats like Cole Porter. (Aptly named the "Easy Virtue" Orchestra) Jessica Biel in any movie is enough to draw an audience based on eye candy alone. Add platinum blonde, an excellent English supporting cast and outfits courtesy of the film's costume collaborators and you have yourself a witty, wild and all-consuming two hours of fun. When Laritta, a young American Grand Prix winner from Detroit meets an even younger English aristocrat, John Whitaker (Ben Barnes)sparks fly as fiercely as Laritta's driving. The two marry and when Laritta meets John's well to do family in the English countryside, the encounter is anything but pleasant. Little does Laritta know that Mrs. Whitaker (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her daughter sidekicks will do anything to have her disappear. What is this gold digging American harlot doing impersonating as a member of my family? She is everything that they are not: lively, seductive, brazen and they hate her for it. Laritta is a match for Mrs Whitaker as they both deftly plot the other's social demise. Laritta is the "siren" leading John to his death and Mrs. Whitaker is Medusa turning all that is beating flesh to stone. One man turned stone is her estranged husband played by Colin Firth. A war vet who has lost his direction and purpose after becoming a failure. He is the dark horse who provides an aside as Shakespeare's character's often do every now and then to put things into perspective. The film climaxes with an ending that you will not soon forget.

This is a decently scripted film, with great actors. I thought Ms. Jessica did an OK job, she was certainly gorgeous!!! At times though, it seems she over-acted her parts, and it was quasi-irritating. Colin Firth, who is probably the world's greatest actor (right alongside with Philip Semyour Hoffman) was amazing, and super funny... except I felt his character didn't have enough involvement, or needed to be more involved with the story. The ending is actually really good, which holds a lot of weight in book.SPOILERS! I thought the dog n couch scene was a lil played-out, and probably woulda been funnier, if it wasn't drawn-out, and found myself thinking, OK, well this is kinda cliché but cute, then it got to, umm OK got it, let's move on. The dance scene with Firth and Biel, was actually really awesome choreographed with super skill. I was really impressed with their tango, which is not easy to pull off. Well played sir, well played.

This film was a wonderful surprise. I usually don't particularly enjoy Biel because I've only ever seen her in films like Stealth and Next, which were both quite terrible. To be perfectly honest I only rented the film because it was based on a play by Noel Coward, whose work I adore. I was ready to be mildly pleased and somewhat saved by Firth and Scott Thomas. I was absolutely delighted when Biel's portrayal of the American female race car driver who has a somewhat shady past was witty, strong and extremely likable. It would be silly to say that Biel does not normally look very attractive; but in this film she looked beautiful and graceful in her evening gowns and fitted trousers.Firth is as dashing and gorgeous as ever as the laconic father who is silently suffering the harrowing memories of the First World War, and his repressive wife and malicious and empty headed daughters. He provides Biel with the perfect support system, making her performance stand out even more with his perfect comic and dramatic timing. Their chemistry is electric and makes Biel and Barnes' pairing looking rather dull and badly matched. The scene in which he and Biel dance passionately to Latin music during a rigid and contrived Christmas party at the family mausoleum, otherwise known as the family cottage, is definitely my favourite part and the best display of their chemistry.Overall the film is witty, wonderful and surprisingly deep. Some may feel disappointed, but I feel that this is one of Noel Coward's best works. It seamlessly shows the unhappiness, secrets, suffering and hypocrisy of the outwardly wealthy but inwardly bankrupt upper class British aristocracy; the doomed pairing of two people who are well acquainted strangers who think they are in love; and the pairing of two people who should have been together all along and finally are.

Jessica Biel who is still probably best known for being the virtuous good girl preacher's kid Mary Camden from 7th Heaven gets to tackle a classic Noel Coward role in one of his early plays Easy Virtue. She's the American interloper in an English aristocratic family and she's unsettling to family matriarch Kristin Scott-Thomas.Noel Coward who wrote about these upper classes and twitted their pretensions with such wit that they kept coming back for more and kind of adopted him in a way they never adopted Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw, was a kid who grew up in poverty and made his way out through his many talents to entertain. Those in the upper classes who took Coward to their hearts felt themselves to be modern, progressive, and generally with it in terms of social trends. The Whittakers in Easy Virtue are some other kind of aristocrats, not anybody like that hangs out at the parties we invite Noel to entertain at.What Amelia Earhart is to aviation, Jessica Biel's character is to auto racing. She's a young widow from the Detroit area and of course being from that area has an interest in motor cars and auto racing. She's fresh from winning at Monte Carlo and she's also won young Ben Barnes the heir to the Whittaker name and estates. Which might not be all that much, there's a name and a lot of land and debts.When Barnes brings Biel home to the family they are mortified by her classless American ways in the sense of not recognizing class distinctions. It was one of those things we got rid of after 1776, no titles of nobility. We had our aristocrats, but that's a whole other story.Scott-Thomas dominates the family, trying desperately to keep the estate together. Her husband Colin Firth served in World War I and the horror of it did something to him. It probably not only has to do with the horror of that trench war slaughter, but the fact that class distinctions tend to melt in combat. He and Biel kind of like each other, but it's his wife who rules the Whittaker roost now.A scandal from the past threatens to disrupt the Barnes/Biel marriage and that forms the crux on which the story turns. In fact at the end its really up to the viewer to figure out what will eventually happen with the two of them.This is the second film adaption of Easy Virtue, the first was a silent film from 1928 and was directed by a young Alfred Hitchcock. Easy Virtue was actually premiered in America before London in 1924 and starred the great American stage actress Jane Cowl. I guess Coward figured with an American heroine it was best to get it before the American theatergoers before the British ones.This version of Easy Virtue is directed flawlessly by Stephen Elliot who made a fine use of period music by Noel Coward, Cole Porter and others and in the end over the credits really mocked the upper classes in the Coward tradition by playing When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going. I believe Elliott was trying to say those classes, especially the ones we see here might not have the right stuff any more.And of course there's the obligatory fox hunt which the upper classes indulged in, still do. As Oscar Wilde said, "the unspeakable after the uneatable."Any chance for the younger generation to be exposed to Noel Coward is worth seeing.