Clevercell Very disappointing...

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

allencoleman46 My wife was reading the book, Brideshead Revisited, for her book club and wanted to simultaneously watch the Jeremy Irons television mini- series. Having seen the 2008 movie, we were both interested based on the previously seen movie and our generally positive opinion of the work of Jeremy Irons. While my wife's opinion is not as negative as mine, I can say that this is the most boring program through which I have sat one-third of the full length. I could not make it any further. It seemed as if a quarter of the story was told in narrative instead of acted out. In addition to the boredom, the introductory music for each episode was terrible.

Rogermarksmen This 1981 adaptation of one of the finest 20th century novels is as perfect as any adaptation for television could ever be. Returning to it after some years, what is so moving and so eloquently conveyed is the wonderful, poetic and innocent early recall of Charles's romance with Oxford and Sebastian, and the gathering clouds of winter which Waugh tells us close around Sebastian's heart, as his mother's destructive piety and possessiveness destroy him, while Charles is unwittingly caught by her power. We see many Jungian archetypes at play. Also, revisiting it, one sees the homosexuality much more, so delicately described by Waugh merely by hints, yet which he says was high on the list of mortal "sins" between the two young men. Platonic? No, but the subtlety is what writers of Waugh's standing sought - it was after all based on an affair in his own life.Jeremy Irons is superb, conveying with great subtlety and often few words the poetry, the sadness, the regret, the loss of innocence, while Anthony Andrews is equally superb, haughty, childlike, trusting yet betrayed, aristocratic. Claire Bloom as Lady Marchmain is an ice queen of still, too controlled beauty, destroying all with her Catholic obsession, unable to see her own shadow. Gielgud - what can one say except superb? Anthony Blanche is deliciously camp and conveys the centrality to those early days that Waugh describes, and of course Olivier is unsurpassed, and Diana Quick beautiful and as tormented by her faith as was her mother. To watch this after the sorry movie version (just two hours against about twelve!) is a real lesson in how to adapt a great novel. One of thee truly great TV classics.

4everard Brideshead Revisited, by Arthur Evelyn Waugh, is one of the greatest and possibly luckiest books on the planet today. A truly heart-wrenching story of a decaying, idyllic society, it is fortunate enough to have this truly excellent TV Series to accompany it. I won't spoil it as it is truly a lovely, subtle narrative, but the actors (you won't get a much better cast anywhere else) portray the characters brilliantly. From Jeremy Irons' slightly unsure Charles Ryder (his slow, even narration is superb) to the hugely likable, but sadly doomed, Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte. Castle Howard, as you will come to realise, is the perfect Brideshead for the series is a character in itself in the series as it seems to change with the general moods of the characters. All in all, this is a truly wonderful series that stays very true to the book. The sad thing is that there won't be many, if any, series like this in the future.

kabrorsen Brideshead Revisited - I have seen the full series several times, I have read the book and I also saw the TV-series on Danish Television, when it was first shown in the early 80's. Brideshead Revisited is in my eyes the masterpiece of British TV-drama. The extremely precise adaption of the somewhat short novel succeeds in the difficult art of capturing the nostalgia, which is the main theme of the book. It is after all first of all a tale of, how the world was as a young man - before everything was changed by WWII. I am not sure, whether book-critics regard Brideshead Revisited as the author's main work, or it just happened to be well suited for filming; but the final TV production is of a quality, which makes all this irrelevant. I have seen most of the great British TV-series, and I always loved the best of them - this one is better than the best. As so many others on this site, I rate it as a clear 10 out of 10.