Easy Virtue (PG-13, 2008)

EASY VIRTUE is a sight to behold. Kudos to the art director, set designer, and costumers for creating a shabbily sophisticated world that's long gone but not forgotten. The images are as crisp as Scott Thomas' upper-crust diction, and the set design is divine. (You can almost feel the dust flying off of those wonderful furniture pieces that have been neglected as the money well runs dry.) Delightful in parts and intolerable in others, the film does, however, suffer from two challenges.

First, there's Biel's somewhat limited range. She gives the enterprise a spirited try and sometimes succeeds, especially when Larita's poignancy shines through. But she's not as funny as she needs to be in such a tart-tongued role. Coming in second is a storyline that, even for a period comedy, is played so much for its quaintness that it becomes unrelatable. And there's so much attention paid to the repetitive back-and-forth between Larita and Veronica that it wears the audience down. When the big "bombshell" is finally revealed, it feels bereft of tension or importance.