(2008) Smoke (cigarettes throughout) and mirrors, a Picasso and a last tango - based on Noel Coward's very witty play and directed by Stephan Elliott, who co-wrote the sometimes romantic and sometimes comic screenplay with Sheridan Jobbins - the ending, after taking a dramatic turn, may surprise you.

After a jaunt abroad, John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) returns home from France to the country estate of his parents and two sisters with his beautiful, charming, intelligent bride, Larita (Jessica Biel), a blonde race-car driver from Detroit.

It's the fall of 1926 - sister Hilda (Kimberly Nixon) has a morbid fascination with newspaper stories of the St Valentine's Day massacre and Harry Houdini's death while her sibling Marion (Katherine Parkinson) is too morose to attract any male's attention other than her father's ("Smile, Marion." "I don't feel like smiling." "You're English, dear, fake it.") - with a frosty reception. Mrs Veronica Whittaker (Kristin Scott Thomas) exclaims: "Oh, you're American."

After Lari accidentally sits upon Poppy, the precious Chihuahua, and surreptitiously has the servants (upon whom she's made a good impression) assist her in removing and burying the crushed pup, the gardener remarks on the "crabby, snappy, little bitch," to which Furber the butler adds that the dog was as well.

The floozy, the gold digger, "the harlot stealing into the nursery," Larita, younger than her husband ("fresh and unblemished"), in a tête-à-tête with Mrs Whittaker tells of her previous marriage to an older man who died of cancer.

The quietly sardonic family patriarch Jim Whittaker (Colin Firth) cares little about the annoyances his wife and daughters associate with Larita, affecting their erstwhile insular serenity; he also knows nothing of the precarious state of the family's finances. Neighbors, Sarah (John's childhood chum and previously anticipated mate) and her brother Phillip ("sharply honed twit"), add depth to the picture while their father, Lord Hurst, in deep perspective negotiates with Mrs Whittaker over a sale of some property.

Wanting privacy and a home of their own, Larita bravely acquiesces to John's insistence that they extend their stay but decides to be her "wild and contagious," sarcastic self, taking part in a War Widow's Revue (in which she and Hilda perform the can-can, though Hilda misunderstands Larita's reference to the original dancers not wearing their knickers, so she high kicks on stage without her scanties), asking the cook to prepare a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, and participating in a fox hunt (riding Mr Whittaker's motorcycle among the horses and hounds).

"We do not need any more reminders of your easy virtue," declares Mrs Whittaker, referring as well to the Cubist canvas of Larita painted by a Spanish artist of the American posing in the nude, which she has presented to John as an early Christmas gift.

Telling Larita of his formerly belonging to the romantic Lost Generation and developing a reciprocal rapport with her (raising in him fresh expectations), Jim reveals the cause of his hollow core, having been a captain during the war: "I didn't bring a single man back."

A phone call from Uncle George in New York provides Hilda with "salacious" news of a scandal involving Mrs Tom Morley of Detroit. "You should have told me," John complains to Larita, who answers: "You should have loved me more."

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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