Brideshead goes down badly in US

The movie version of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited has already attracted criticism from Sir John Mortimer (he wrote the script for the highly acclaimed 1981 British TV version) who claimed the film’s producers were shying away from the novel’s integral themes - God, homosexuality and Aloysius the teddy bear – in order to make it more palatable to mass cinema audiences. However, to gauge from the reaction of crticis in the US, where the film was released Friday, it appears to have had only mixed success in achieving this humble aim.

The Washington Post said the movie "does not hold up the integrity of the book", while the New York Times labelled it "a lazy, complacent film which takes the novel's name in vain". The Boston Herald called it "oddly pointless". The Sunday Times reports New Yorkers leaving the cinema on Friday night saying it was "not riveting". Not all the reviews were as damning, however. Roger Ebert, the highly regarded Chicago film critic, described it as "a good, sound example of the British period drama" while Variety called it "a finely wrought, Merchant-Ivory style, Brit-lit film, which is lush and compelling".

One of the problems the film is expected to suffer from is the low profile of the lead actors - Charles Ryder is played by Matthew Goode, Julia Flyte by Hayley Atwell (pictured)and her brother Sebastian by Ben Whishaw, all new faces to US moviegoers. Because of this Emma Thompson, who plays Lady Marchmain, features prominently on the movie’s poster (the 49-year-old actress might not float everybody’s boat, but she is at least well known). That said, Waugh devotees will be pleased to learn that Aloysius, Sebastian Flyte’s teddy bear, does appear in the film. One of the writers, Andrew Davies, had originally removed him altogether, but his co-writer Jeremy Brock reinstated him into the script fearing an outcry.