Review of Blithe Spirit
midlandsmovies • April 25, 2021
Blithe Spirit (2021) Dir. Edward Hall
Based on the play by Noël Coward, new comic farce Blithe Spirit stars Dan Stevens (Beauty & the Beast, The Guest) as Charles Condomine who after a séance is haunted by the ghost of his first wife Elvira.
Charles is a novelist suffering writer’s block and although he can see Elvira (Leslie Mann), everyone else including his new wife Ruth (Isla Fisher) cannot. And this ghostly love-triangle suggests we’re about to get involved in a whole host of crazy incidences and situations. Yet, there are none.
I haven’t seen the Coward play but lord I hope it’s better than this flat, stilted and incredibly bland product. It does “feel” like a stage play but that makes the absent film techniques (blocking, cinematography, editing) stand out all the more and makes the transition to film completely redundant.
We know all three leads can raise plenty of laughs (Stevens in Eurovision Song Contest, and Fisher and Mann in most things they are in) but here the material is consistently unfunny, the sequences turgid and Judi Dench as the clairvoyant are all bland, humourless and misfire on every level.
A tone similar to Clue (1985) or Death Becomes Her (1992) with their knockabout crime and supernatural flavourings would seem to be an appropriate template but this film can only dream of their quirky and satisfying conflicts and nimble script.
The play itself ran for a record 1,997 performances with revivals in 2004, 2011, 2014 AND 2020 but whatever genius audience-friendly hooks you get on stage are missing here, sadly making the film an absolute graceless chore.
★
Michael Sales
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