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Easy Virtue (2008)

tomatometer

52

Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 122
Fresh: 63 | Rotten: 59

A lightweight and pithy Noel Coward adaptation with plenty of sparkle and fizz.

45

Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 18

A lightweight and pithy Noel Coward adaptation with plenty of sparkle and fizz.

audience

47

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 28,983

My Rating

Movie Info

A glamorous American woman enters into a spirited battle of wits with her disapproving English mother-in-law in this period romantic comedy. John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) and Larita Huntington (Jessica Biel) married in haste following a whirlwind romance. But reality comes knocking when the couple arrives to visit John's parents and his mother has an allergic reaction to her new daughter-in-law. As the battle of wits between the two women escalates, John and Larita's marriage begins to suffer. ~

PG-13,

Comedy, Romance

Stephan Elliott, Sheridan Jobbins

Sep 15, 2009

$2.5M

Sony Pictures Classics

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Cast

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All Critics (123) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (63) | Rotten (59) | DVD (5)

Echoing the words of the great Porter song, Easy Virtue deliciously misbehaves.

June 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Seattle Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

These are good actors telling a good story, so the virtue is indeed easy to grasp, and a fine time should be had by all.

June 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Detroit News
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Easy Virtue has all the elements for a sprightly romp with serious underpinnings, and occasionally it achieves that balance. But it's marred by attempts at farce that are as belabored as they are ill-advised.

June 11, 2009 Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A winning, witty fox trot through the Roaring 20s, when men were men, women were liberating themselves and the 'to the manner born' were losing their grip on their manners -- and manors.

June 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Jessica Biel gets more publicity for her body and her boyfriend than for her acting ability, but Easy Virtue may be cause for a reassessment.

June 10, 2009 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | Comment (1)
Arizona Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

June 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A period piece that may play well with those who hate period pieces. [Blu-ray]

September 23, 2009 Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews
Groucho Reviews

Easy Virtue makes subtle comedy look easy. The ensemble is brilliant, and Noel Coward's play-brought-to-film is just good enough . . . .

September 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

This British drawing-room comedy feels awfully familiar but is redeemed by some tart performances.

September 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Hollywood.com
Hollywood.com

A recent headline declared that [Jessica] Biel "is still trying to prove she's more than a pretty face." After Easy Virtue, she's still got something to prove.

July 17, 2009 Full Review Source: Times-Picayune
Times-Picayune

It's only a surprise if you haven't seen his other films.

July 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Film Freak Central
Film Freak Central

Awkwardly conceived in a superficial reality that leaves its punch lines without much punch.

June 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Biel's performance lacks the zing needed to jolt this comedy of manners.

June 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

Jessica Biel turns out to be up to the task of handling Coward's deliciously acidic lines and is well-matched with an impressive all-British cast in the sparkling "Easy Virtue."

June 26, 2009 Full Review Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI)
Capital Times (Madison, WI)

If Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas firing snarky bon mots at people for 90 minutes doesn't sound entertaining, I don't know what to tell you.

June 22, 2009 Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com
EricDSnider.com

...almost undone by the casting of thoroughly modern Jessica Biel.

June 22, 2009 Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | Comment (1)
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Easy to like but hard to wholly recommend.

June 21, 2009 Full Review Source: Creative Loafing
Creative Loafing

Biel holds her own with the seamless acting chops of Firth and Thomas. The movie benefits from a snappy musical score with familiar standout show tunes from Cole Porter.

June 20, 2009 Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum
Entertainment Spectrum

Said husband, as well as the family's other members, are as bland and forgettable as the 1920s British cuisine on display.

June 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Oregonian
Oregonian

In 1988, Sheridan Morley noted that Easy Virtue "remains of interest chiefly as Noel's elegant, laconic tribute to a lost world of drawing-room dramas." This gleefully inelegant movie tosses even that mild interest away.

June 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Baltimore Sun
Baltimore Sun

Biel is not completely miscast in this role of the Other in the drawing-room midst, but she exudes a thoroughly contemporary air that never jibes with the Twenties tenor of the English manor-born in the decade after the Great War.

June 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle

Will appeal only to Anglophiles who swoon at the sound of such words as 'codswallop'...

June 19, 2009 Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Sporadically engaging, Easy Virtue would do better swapping amusement for a more elusive quarry: truth.

June 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

To say that her casting doesn't work is an understatement. And there's not nearly enough of Coward's biting wit on display here.

June 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

Stephan Elliott is back with a vengeance. He's also back with a movie that's not only a worthy successor to Priscilla, it may be even better.

June 17, 2009 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Audience Reviews for Easy Virtue

The combination of a new American wife being brought home by her British hubby to meet his family lends itself to a lot of funny situations. I thought Jessica Biel played her part well and Colin Firth is fantastic as normal.
June 27, 2012
Redlats

Super Reviewer

A very enjoyable story about trying to move through life with all of the baggage that we inherit from our family and accumulate on our own.

Witty, clever and at times touching.

Made all the more powerful by the writing of Noel Coward and this amazing group of actors. Though the weakest link is Biel...she does a pretty good job at holding her own against this pretty amazing cast.

Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth are favorites of mine and are great here.

And it was my first time seeing Katherine Parkinson outside of her performance on the BBC series The IT Crowd and she was great as well.

Even the soundtrack was very clever with a 1920-30 style badn performing hits from the period intermixed with random hits from other (later) eras, done in 1920's style.
June 10, 2009
RCCLBC
Robert C

Super Reviewer

    1. John Whittaker: Mother,this is my wife,Larita.
    2. Larita Huntington: Mrs Whittaker, the pleasure is all mine!
    3. Veronica Whittaker: Oh,you're American...
    4. Colonel Jim Whittaker: And very welcome!
    – Submitted by Mariam M (8 months ago)
    1. Larita Huntington: You have no idea what it means to love someone so much that you will do anything for them. Even inject them with poison when they were too feeble to do it for themselves.
    – Submitted by Bogár A (11 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Easy Virtue - Eine unmoralische Ehefrau (DE)
  • Un mariage de rêve (FR)
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