Brideshead Revisited (2008)

BBC TWO, 11.25PM ★★★

In the light of the 1981 TV version of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, you do have to admire the chutzpah of anyone else giving Brideshead a go. Julian Jarrold’s attempt suffers from a desire to force modern conventions upon a story defined by the mores of upper-class interwar Britain. Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw are the Flyte siblings, but Catholicism, the tale’s engine, is only pernicious, never seductive.