Brideshead Revisited

Why anyone thought it necessary to make another Brideshead Revisited is a mystery. The fondly regarded 1981 British television miniseries should have been the last word on Evelyn Waugh’s elegy to friendship, art, aristocracy and religion in Edwardian England. The new adaptation, directed by Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane) and written by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, is anything but magical. It’s a flat-footed, CliffsNotes condensation that strips every last bit of wit from Waugh’s novel and leaves the bare bones to rattle about onscreen for two-and-a-quarter hours. It’s like a bad term paper by a student who only skimmed the book. **