Watch Bright Young Things For Free

One of the wrost movies I have ever seen

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

"Bright Young Things" or "Bright Young People" was the name given to a set of hedonistic, fun-loving young aristocrats and bohemians in the London of the 1920s and 1930s and who featured prominently in the gossip columns of the day. When in 1930 Evelyn Waugh wrote a novel satirising the group he initially intended to call it "Bright Young Things", but rejected this because he felt it had become too much of a journalistic cliché. His eventual choice of title, however, "Vile Bodies", was not his happiest inspiration, so it is perhaps not surprising that writer-director Stephen Fry reverted to Waugh's original choice. The novel contains some brilliant satirical writing and social commentary, but its plot is rather unsatisfactory. It is also notably uneven in tone, starting off relatively light-hearted but becoming progressively bitterer and gloomier; Waugh himself attributed this unevenness to the fact that it was while writing the novel that his marriage to his first wife (also named Evelyn) collapsed. Waugh's story ends with the outbreak of a catastrophic European war; writing three years before Hitler's rise to power, he was remarkably prophetic in this respect. Fry rewrites Waugh's story somewhat, moving the action from the late twenties/early thirties to the late thirties; there are references to both Hitler and Wallis Simpson. The Prime Minister, however, is neither Baldwin nor Chamberlain but Waugh's fictitious James Brown. (In choosing this name he also proved unintentionally prophetic; Gordon Brown's full name was James Gordon Brown). The film ends during the actual, historical Second World War, not the hypothetical war of the novel. Fry is able to deal more explicitly with matters such as drug use and homosexuality, which in the moral climate of the early thirties Waugh could only hint at. The plot is really too complex to summarise in any detail, but it revolves around the efforts of an aspiring young novelist named Adam Fenwick-Symes to find enough money to court his fiancée Nina Blount. When the manuscript of Adam's latest novel, also titled "Bright Young Things", is confiscated by Dover customs officers for allegedly being pornographic, even though they have never read it, he is forced to take a job as a gossip columnist on a newspaper, a job which brings him into frequent contact with London's smart set. Other important characters include Simon Balcairn, Adam's predecessor as "Mr Chatterbox", Ginger Littlejohn, Adam's rival for Nina's affections, and the Canadian-born newspaper proprietor Lord Monomark. (Monomark, like Lord Copper in Waugh's later novel "Scoop", is a satirical portrait of Lord Beaverbrook). The film contains a large number of cameos by distinguished members of the British acting profession, among them John Mills in his last film before his death two years later. Among the notable contributions are those from Dan Aykroyd as the overbearing Monomark, Fenella Woolgar as the madcap socialite Agatha Runcible, Michael Sheen as the screamingly camp Miles Malpractice, Peter O'Toole as Nina's mad old father Colonel Blount and Simon Callow as the exiled King of Anatolia, forever bewailing the theft of a valuable fountain-pen, something which seems to distress him far more than the loss of his kingdom. Fry keeps some of the serious incidents from the original novel; one character, for example, commits suicide and another ends up in a lunatic asylum, but he gives his film a much happier ending. This may prove controversial with purists, but in my view it was the right thing to do. Waugh's bleak ending served to underline his serious satirical purpose, but satire tends to lose its bite when directed against the mores and social institutions of several decades ago rather than against those of one's own day. "Bright Young Things" is less a social satire than a comedy-drama with a period setting, and, with some witty dialogue, amusing incidents and well-drawn characters it works very well as such. 7/10

Situated between the two world wars, tells the story of a rowdy group of Bohemians by nature that consist of poets, musicians or actors or just bored from the upper class echelon, fulfill in their wasted lives by partying, drinking, or other assorted ways to keep themselves entertained in order to search for the meaning of life. "Bright Young Things" depicts the ideology of what went through the minds of young people who grew up in the 1930's that included household names at the time like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde. These people were well cultured and extraordinary geniuses, but due to their controversial ways, their fate ended in tragic proportions.Based on the novel "Vile Bodies" by Evelyn Waugh, actor/director Stephen Fry resurrects this rather untouched decade with a no-nonsense, relaxed manner as we explore these posh upper-class socialites we like to call "Bright Young Things". With a fast-paced and refined, the characters portrayed here are spineless and degenerative. With disaster drawing upon them, the London Tabloids are chewing up on their reputation. They even usurp the Royal Family in media attention. These guys don't care about current political events, money to them grows on trees and they lived their lives like it was the last day on Earth for them, which might not be too far away for them. But do you think they care?Stephen Fry has wowed his fans with his impressive resume of outstanding performances over the years. Even though he's acting here albeit a small role, his directing is another reason to respect this man. The cast that's compiled here are a definitive ensemble of well-known performers juxtaposed with a cast of then newcomers. We have veteran performers like Jim Broadbent, Julia Mackenzie and Peter O'Toole and final goodbye for Lord John Mills. Then there's relative newbies at the time like Emily Mortimer, Stephen Campbell Moore and James McAvoy enlightening us with their professional prowess. And then also we have North American alums to join the cast (Dan Aykroyd and Stockard Channing) show that they can turn in brilliant performances without sounding clichéd. Fry loosely lets them strut their acting chops until some of them fizzle out in their own demise. And though the movie "Chicago" paints the grim depiction of the roaring twenties, "Bright Young Things" goes the extra mile to in all its reckless ways. With incredible settings, accurate costuming and luscious scenery, this movie captivates a prelude time period before WWII. I highly recommend you to watch this movie. You'll be enlightened, by the superb acting, the authentic costumes and Stephen Fry's masterful direction. It will leave you mesmerized.

Watching Stephen Fry making his directorial debut is a little bit like watching a toddler the first time he rides a bike without stabilisers. Things are dangerously wobbly to begin with then smooth out nicely as self-belief grows before everything comes crashing down due to over-confidence. Based on Evelyn Waugh's 'Vile Bodies', this film chronicles the debauched lifestyle of a group of paradoxically penniless rich kids (i.e. they're mostly lords and ladies but have no visible means of income) in a Britain of the 30s that would be unrecognisable to all but the impoverished aristocracy. This is a rarefied world that no doubt existed and seemed real to the likes of Waugh but which is unrecognisable to the majority of British people. Without doubt, however, this movie, in its representation of that period and lifestyle, provides us with an absorbing and entertaining tale.Apart from our hero Adam Fenwick-Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore, another débutant giving a good account of himself) the characters in this film aren't so much introduced as wander in like party guests you drunkenly met in another room ten minutes ago. They all share a propensity for decadence, and the affectation of declaring most everything to be a frantic bore, and are all, without exception, empty shells. We've seen it all before in the likes of Brideshead Revisited and The Sun Also Rises, but Fry manages to keep us hooked despite the clumsy manner in which he films those opening scenes. Perhaps it's because of the sumptuous production design that captures the feel of these bright young things' hedonistic lifestyle, or perhaps it's because of the amiably random manner in which Fry begins to pull the threads of his story together. Either way, despite Fry's apparent determination to use every scene transition known to the film world, and to make use of at least a little snippet from each of a multitude of cameras used to shoot many scenes, the story manages to hold your attention and drag you along with it, leaving you asking yourself why you're interested in a bunch of characters who are all about as deep as lemon peel.The story and the characters follow a predictable arc, but Fry fills the film with enough detail and ingenuity to at least keep us entertained. A host of famous faces provide a series of cameos that last little more than seconds in some cases – and this is without doubt the only film in which you will see the redoubtable Sir John Mills snorting cocaine. Fenella Woolgar outshines everybody in her scenes as the agreeably dippy cokehead Agatha, who brings a whole new meaning to the term 'powdering one's nose' and eventually parties herself into an insane asylum. In a role that strays into parody every now and then, she manages to provide a brief glimpse of a lost soul behind the party face, and her 'dream' speech pretty much sums up the entire social scene in which the characters are embroiled. James McAvoy, as the ill-fated Lord Balcairn (AKA Mr. Chatterbox) also stands out in one of few sympathetic roles.The film loses its momentum in the final act, when Fry moves from adapting Waugh's story to altering it completely, and we are left with an ending that is not only contrived but stretches credibility beyond its limits. Having managed to have steered a path that at least avoided conventionality in terms of plot, Fry suddenly makes a complete about-turn and presents us with a finale that stands out as a monumental piece of misjudgement. Perhaps Waugh's ending was too downbeat for the backers. It's a shame if that is the case, because it will mean that Fry most likely compromised himself. Somewhere down the line someone needs to show an ounce of integrity and fight for an ending that is true to the nature of the story, rather than compromising with a soap-opera climax that tarnishes the good work that has gone before.Bottom line: BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS is a worthy directorial debut from Stephen Fry and, while it's no classic, has a lot going for it. It's probably not worth seeking out, but if it happens to cross your path it's definitely worth watching. Just be sure to stop watching after the war scenes….

I had never heard of this movie, just got it in the mail from my movie club. It sounded like some sordid sex movie and so I had no interest in watching it. However, since injuring my back being laid up bored, I thought I'd check out the trailer, at least. Since it looked like a period movie, I thought I'd give it a go. It started slowly, not really introducing much of a conflict or plot. What I liked about it was the attention to period detail and the great character development. What I didn't like about it was the boring content and lack of a compelling plot. There was some promising use of color in the direction at the beginning of the movie, but for some reason that didn't continue! The brightest moments in the movie were the scenes with Peter O'Toole and Dan Aykroyd.