Easy Virtue

Have you ever thought that what the film adaptation of a Noel Coward play needed was Jazz Age covers of “Car Wash” and “Sex Bomb”? Me neither, but Easy Virtue has them, and a few random musical numbers as well. Sure, the sight of Ben Barnes crooning some Cole Porter is enough to make me quiver and swoon, but it’s not enough to save Easy Virtue from the tedium that sets in. Damn shame as Coward’s at his best when the fizziness and artifice of his language (and sharp edged bon mots) are allowed the appropriate room to breathe. But we do get to watch Jessica Biel get outclassed by the acting prowess of Kristin Scott Thomas during their numerous verbal spats, and play vague flirtation and coy sexual attraction with Colin Firth as her traumatized father-in-law. What this needed was less modernity, the casting of Biel does not help sell the period, and more of a “let’s misbehave” vibe, as Porter once wrote.