Easy Virtue
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: May 22, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Jessica Biel has great fun with the American adventuress, while Kristin Scott Thomas is truly scary as her nemesis and mother-in-law. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
An effervescent entertainment that marks a welcome return for "Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" director Stephan Elliott after a nine-year absence. Read full review
80
Village VoiceElla Taylor
Quick! Noël Coward--sage or supercilious bitch? No matter where you stand, Stephan Elliott's deliciously cheeky screen adaptation of one of the satirist's lesser-known jabs at the British upper crust will charm your pants off. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Elliott has created a wonderfully rich battle for propriety in Easy Virtue. The humor might sting, but the pain is worth the pleasure. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
In its cold-eyed assessment of the English aristocracy Easy Virtue has none of the lurking Anglophilia found in Merchant-Ivory movies. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Sure, there's a plot, but it's a secondary element to the lines the actors deliver. Only Oscar Wilde has the same bite. Fortunately, Elliott understands this, which makes Easy Virtue go down smoothly. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Director Stephan Elliott uncorks a rare vintage of laughs tinged with heartache. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It's a pleasure to watch such top-notch actors deliver Coward's sparkling wit. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The dialogue has an edgy wit, although it has no ambitions to be falling-down funny. Here is the Odd Couple formula applied in a specific time and place that make them feel very odd indeed. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Gets better as it goes along. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The picture itself is only mechanically breezy. Read full review
60
EmpireHelen O'Hara
While its tone occasionally wavers and there are some wobbly performances, this has moments of true lightness, and a welcome sense of whimsy often missing in the costume genre. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Easy Virtue has aspirations to be much more than a comedy. It wants to flay, if only with a penknife, the entire British class system. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
This may have been fertile grounds for satire in 1925, when Noel Coward's drawing-room melodrama Easy Virtue debuted on the stage, but by now this film version feels rather done. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Easy Virtue needs a strong center to justify its celebration of American effrontery, and Biel lacks that prideful edge. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
We could all use a little more Noel Coward in our lives. But the fizz falls flat in Stephan Elliot's adaptation of a lesser-known play, which, while blithe enough, has little spirit to speak of. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
iIf you can ignore a ridiculously overbearing soundtrack - a big if - the film's a pleasant bauble. Still, those coming in cold may be forgiven for thinking they've wandered into "Atonement" remade as a farce. Read full review
50
NPRBob Mondello
The upside of a Coward-powered letdown is that I had plenty of time to contemplate one particularly improbable fact about Easy Virtue: that it had a previous incarnation on film. As, of all things, a silent picture. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Shot in country fields and interiors of fading Georgian glory, Easy Virtue has enough traces of Coward's wit to keep you hoping for the first hour or so, but then the film collapses under the weight of too many misguided innovations. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
If you're looking for a simple-minded farce with campy overtones, this 2008 feature might be your dish. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Anything but light on its feet. It lumbers instead of dazzles, drags where it should feint and jab. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Full of forced jocularity and drawing-room hissy fits, with its cast parading around in vintage threads and antique cars, Easy Virtue is a close-to-insufferable souffle based on the 1925 Noel Coward play. Read full review
50
Washington PostDan Zak
Blame the wafer-thin adaptation by Sheridan Jobbins and director Stephan Elliott. What might've been a scrumptious, chocolatey dessert of a movie -- a Noel Coward delite -- is instead a scoop of lemon ice, not filling, faintly sweet and mostly water. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
It may tell you everything you need to know about Easy Virtue to note that Hollywood hottie Jessica Biel receives top billing over veteran Brit thesps Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth. Read full review
38
New York PostLou Lumenick
A crass, heavy- handed and -- most unforgivably -- largely laugh-free adaptation of The Master's infrequently revived 1924 comic melodrama. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Easy Virtue may be a bauble, as Larita's described at one point, but Coward's examination of hypocrisy demands real skill. The style should suggest "whipped cream with knives," as Stephen Sondheim once described "A Little Night Music." Elliott's film is more like curdled milk with a spork. Read full review
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