The Line of Beauty
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Movie Reviews of The Line of Beauty
Movie Review: It's a beaute
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this movie because I was looking to culture myself a little bit and based my purchase off the other reviews. They were right about it being a good movie. I can't say too much without giving the plot away, but it won't fail you. PS It's not the best movie in the world, but it's a good watch.Movie Review: A wonderful adaption of the prize-winning novel
Summary: 5 Stars
This 3 hour, 3 part series is a fantastic adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's prize-winnging novel. The acting is superb and the plot will keep you glued to the TV! Beautifully filmed and highly enjoyable.Movie Review: If you liked the book
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved the book, and this adaption does a fine job of bringing it to life. Remarkably, they take a very dense story and condense it into 3 hours-a few things suffer, but overall, it's fantastic. It really captures the tone, and more importantly, the time (it takes place in the 1980's).
I watched it first on LOGO-which was maddening, they chopped it up and put commercials in at the most inappropriate times. It's much more enjoyable on DVD. And for $14.99 definitely worth the money.
Movie Review: 1980's Britain Gay Scene
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie followed the book almost to the letter, which is usually hard to find. Our focus is on Nick Guest, a young gay Oxford graduate who moves in with his classmates parents in a grand house. The family he's moved in with are very influential and affluent. Nick comes from a lower class and the snobery comes out eventually. The political and social environment of the era is explored through Nick's interactions with the gay men he meets and the family he lives with. Definitely worth your time.Movie Review: Gatsby Lives
Summary: 4 Stars
"THE LINE OF BEAUTY"
Gatsby Lives
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
If "The Line of Beauty" (BBC Video) seems a bit familiar to you, then you probably have read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". The two share a common storyline--a young man from an ordinary background who has grandiose ideas about the members of the "smart set". The major difference is that Fitzgerald's is very American and Alan Hollinghurst's (the author of the book from whom the movie was created) is very British. I could not think of a better title for this than "The Line of Beauty" because it is beautiful. The screenplay, the cinematography and the performances are uniformly excellent.
The movie deals almost exclusively with the British upper class but it also follows one man as he maneuvers his way through his own sexual awakening while living in the glamour (albeit fake) of the Tory government of the 1980's. The politics of the period are played down and instead we focus on Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) and the way he goes about meeting men. Nick is a real looker possessing baby blue yes, a great head of hair and a vibrant personality to boot.
The similarity between "Gatsby" and "Beauty" are evident between the two films. In both cases the narrator is a character and the "Nicks" of both were below the class level of the rest of the characters and both "Nicks" admire the upper class and at some point they believe that they are actually members of the upper class. This association with the upper class ends when both had to pay for the sins they committed against the people they so admired. Both are classics of social difference but "Beauty" has an extra subplot which deals with AIDS. "Beauty has great acting and an admirable script but then it was adapted from a prize winning novel.
I think one of the things that makes "The Line of Beauty" so endearing is that since not much seems to happen on the screen, it does happen in the mind of the viewer. In what seems to be a pretentious script at first, we soon learn that the actors in their excellent portrayals are only playing parts and what appeared to be pretentious was in reality not. As Americans, we are not familiar with the English class system so the class division may seem quite foreign to us.
Unquestionably the book is better than the movie but as an exercise in covering the period of time during which Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, it is ad admirable film.
I have read reviews that tore the film to bits and I cannot agree with them. Perhaps I have nothing but good experiences with films made by the BBC and "The Line of Beauty" is another flower in the bouquet. Well acted, well photographed and well written, it is a very good film.