Blithe Spirit: Film Review

Cast: Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann, Judi Dench

Director: Edward Hall

Not exactly highbrow, but packing a bit of a screwball edge, director Edward Hall's slightly over-the-top Blithe Spirit follows a familiar edge to the Noel Coward story.

Stevens plays Charles Condomine, a writer frustrated by writer's block as he tries to adapt his own book for the screenplay. Wife Ruth (Fisher) is equally frustrated by Charles' lack of progress - both on the book and on their marriage.

When Charles invites apparently fraudulent medium Madame Arcati (Dench, having a roaring time in the period drama and overplaying her role with some acerbity) to their home for a seance, she accidentally conjures up the spirit of Charles' dead wife Elvira (a playful and irritating Mann) - meaning suddenly there's three in the marriage...

Packed full of period art-deco touches and some truly eyepopping costuming, the 2020 version of Blithe Spirit zips along with some chutzpah and pizazz, without ever really being anything more than a shallow farce dressed up nicely for the big screen.

Stevens has a riot going over-the-top as the froth sets in, and a malevolent Mann displays a devilish impishness to her ghostly Elvira. Fisher brings the right amount of heart as Ruth, the woman in the middle of it all, but in among the wizz-bang chocks away approach of the time, the film's energy is 

enough to propel it through its stage derivation.

Leaning more into the wacky edges and all the better for it, Blithe Spirit has a frothy feel that's never quite contagious enough but it is more than enough to get it through its mischievous edges and will leave audiences not looking to be challenged, merely leaving them more than satisfied.