Brideshead Revisited

This much-anticipated adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel is a loving tribute to English country houses, Oxford quads, and the delights of Venice. Whether it does justice to the original novel - or indeed rivals the 1981 TV version - is debatable.

Strolling through these charming settings is Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), a handsome, wide-eyed young thing who becomes enchanted with an aristocratic family, falling first into a passionate friendship with Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), then with his sister Julia (Hayley Atwell), as their estranged parents (Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon) hover overhead.

But alongside these great flutterings of the heart is a discussion on the British class system, sexual taboos and, most importantly, religion. And it is here that this Brideshead grows flimsy, casting the fervently Catholic Lady Marchmain (Thompson) as the source of her family's undoing, her husband's departure and her children's confusion.

What we crave here is subtlety, a more nuanced approach to such complex subjects. Instead we must make do with dreamy portraits of the English landscape, and a clutch of beautiful young things. ·