Bright Young Things

Colour, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 2003, 104 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Stephen Fry was inspired by Evelyn Waugh´s Vile Bodies for his debut as a director. This famous British author´s second novel was first published in 1930. Fry however has set the action in the late 1930s, in order to emphasise the parallel between the carefree heroes - members of London´s "upper crust" - and the period leading inevitably to the tragedy of World War II. The hero of the story is Adam Symes, a young writer snugly tucked into this snobbish society, who unexpectedly finds himself without means. Marriage to the wealthy but wayward Nina seems the best solution. With his budget and social status dependent on his reckless relationship to money, Adam tries to improve things through gambling - and writing. Important roles in the story are played by Nina´s eccentric father, the Canadian newspaper magnate Monomark and the conspiratorial Father Rothschild. These are among the "leaders" of a world which doesn´t deserve too charitable a view, a society chasing after experience, zigzagging between sexual scandals, and flirting with drugs. 

About the director

Stephen Fry (b. 1957, London) is a film and television actor, as well as a writer of television scripts. Since his student days he has been an integral part of the tradition of British intellectual humour (appearances include a TV version of the Cambridge Footlights Revue, 1982; the series "Alfresco," 1983; "Jeeves and Wooster," 1990; the comedies A Fish Called Wanda, 1988 and Peter´s Friend, 1992). For the title role in Wilde (1997) he was nominated for a Golden Globe and took Best Actor at the Seattle IFF. With the cast of Robert Altman´s Gosford Park (2001) he won the Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2002 he was a guest at Karlovy Vary.