CINEMA

EASY VIRTUE: A social comedy about an English aristocrat who brings his American wife home to meet his family.

The son of an aristocratic English family, John Wittaker returns home from the French Riviera with a surprise: he has married a 30-year-old American widow (Jessica biel). While his father (colin Firth) finds her presence in the family's country estate refreshing, his mother (Kristen Scott Thomas) takes an instant dislike to the new arrival. Unofficially, war as declared between the two women. Based upon a 1924 play by Noel Coward, Easy Virtue deliberalety mixes a 1920s setting with a modern tone. The result is interesting, but a times it serves as a distraction from the characters themselves. Who can complain, however, when you have a cast as good as this?