Taglines: Sex… Scandal… Celebrity… Some things never change.
Bright Young Things movie storyline. A fool and his money. In the 1930s, Adam Fenwick-Symes is part of the English idle class, wanting to marry the flighty Nina Blount. He’s a novelist with a hundred-pound advance for a manuscript confiscated by English customs.
He spends the next several years trying to get money and to set a wedding date: he trades in gossip, wins money on wagers then gives it to a drunken major who’s suggested he bet on a horse in an upcoming race. Adam tries to get the money back, but can’t find the major. Meanwhile, Nina needs security, friends drink too much, and general unhappiness spoils the party. Then war breaks out. Is Adam’s bright youth dimming with the fall of an empire?
Bright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People: young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians, as well as society in general, in the late 1920s through to the early 1940s. It was John Mills’ final film before his death in 2005.
About the Story
The primary characters are earnest aspiring novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes and his fiancée Nina Blount. When Adam’s novel Bright Young Things, commissioned by tabloid newspaper magnate Lord Monomark, is confiscated by HM customs officers at the port of Dover for being too racy, he finds himself in a precarious financial situation that may force him to postpone his marriage.
In the lounge of the hotel where he lives, he wins £1000 by successfully performing a trick involving sleight of hand, and the Major offers to place the money on the decidedly ill-favored Indian Runner in a forthcoming horserace. Anxious to wed Nina, Adam agrees, and the horse wins at odds of 33–1, but it takes him more than a decade to collect his winnings.
Meanwhile, Adam and Nina are part of a young and decadent crowd, whose lives are dedicated to wild parties, alcohol, cocaine, and the latest gossip reported by columnist Simon Balcairn, known to his readers as Mr. Chatterbox. Among them are eccentric Agatha Runcible, whose wild ways eventually lead her to being committed in a mental institution.
Miles, who is forced to flee the country to avoid prosecution for his homosexuality; Sneath, a paparazzo who chronicles the wicked ways of the young and reckless; and Ginger Littlejohn, Nina’s former beau, who ingratiates himself back into her life, much to Adam’s dismay. The pastimes of the young, idle rich are disrupted with the onset of World War II, which eventually overtakes their lives in often devastating ways.
Bright Young Things (2003)
Directed by: Stephen Fry
Starring: Emily Mortimer, Stephen Campbell Moore, Fenella Woolgar, Michael Sheen, James McAvoy, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent, Peter O’Toole, Stockard Channing, Fenella Woolgar
Screenplay by: Stephen Fry
Production Design by: Michael Howells
Cinematography by: Henry Braham
Film Editing by: Alex Mackie
Costume Design by: Nic Ede
Set Decoration by: Judy Farr
Art Direction by: Lynne Huitson
Music by: Anne Dudley
MPAA Rating: R for some drug use.
Distributed by: Film Four
Release Date: October 3, 2003
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