Bright Young Things, the new film by writer/director Stephen Fry, rightly shows his audience that "glamour is a delusion." The film is based on the novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, an author who wrote in the first half of the 20th century and is famous for novels that focus on the upper crust of English society. Fry takes his audience on a journey to 1930s British society, where popularity and class status mean everything, and morality and conscience mean nothing. The lives of these young adults include nightly parties, excessive drinking and regular encounters with "naughty dust." Nothing in this world matters, except for their own frivolous ventures.
The plot unfurls as a high-ranking editor (Dan Aykroyd), guides the column-writer, Mr. Chatterbox, to uncover the dirty secrets of the high-society luminaries, a topic that never fails to sell papers. A parallel story follows the charming "bright young thing," Adam (Stephen Campbell Moore), and his dark and perhaps shallow lover, Nina (Emily Mortimer). Together, and along with a handful of distinctive "friends," the group travels around England in a stream of cleverly written sub-plots that allow for a sometimes comic, sometimes dark tale, telling the inside stories of these publicity-enamored lives.
These "friends" of the starring couple range from Nina's seemingly senile father to the gay Miles, and to the "extraordinary" Agatha, who in one scene finds herself at the house of the Prime Minister after his daughters have tried to win her acceptance by an extended invitation to their house. This seems to be a comment on how even government prominence is surpassed by social status, and proof that if the Mr. Chatterboxes follow closely enough, they will have stories that sell papers off the racks.
But just because there is pressure to write and know about this admired glitterati, no one says that everyone agrees with their ways. When the pressure and the desire to be on top causes one of the news writers to deliver an over-the-top, post-party monologue to his editors, the writer gets the final statement, not by word, but by action. Similar serious sections in this film follow, as the audience sees that the glamour sought by the young trying to prove themselves and the old trying to be young presents profound superficiality that is easier and easier to see though.
Bright Young Things is carried by smart writing that leaves just enough unsaid to force the audience to piece together details that would in any other movie be irrelevant. This film contains tie-ins that many blockbuster movies of today lack, making it stand out even more. Stephen Fry, who is an actor himself (Le Divorce, Gosford Park), does a commendable job with his first big work, combining the perfect-sized window of this fantastical life-style with the sobering scenes which, of course, provide the moral tag.
During these crucial events in the film, it is remarkable to see how the characters' real emotions are illuminated in contrast to much of their shallow behavior. Commentary on several different layers is expressed here, and there are often so many that it is difficult to choose a side, most notably when following Adam.
The ending minutes seem a little rushed, but Fry does a credible job of following the tie-ups that one would expect from watching the previous scenes.
The main theme of this movie focuses on reality and on how it has changed for these "bright young things" -- a theme which is not just restricted to a period piece like this film, but carries modern-day relevance as well. Bright Young Things opens in Baltimore on Sept. 17.
