"Blithe Spirit" breezy and perfectly cast but lacks snap to be a screwball farce

 

Blithe Spirit (2021)

Only having a basic familiarity with the material, it’s hard to say how “Blithe Spirit” compares to the 1945 film adaptation of Noël Coward’s 1941 play, but it had to have been wittier than this reincarnated bon-bon. (To be fair, it’s less lame than 2008’s forgettable Eva Longoria-Paul Rudd-Lake Bell romantic comedy “Over Her Dead Body,” which seemed like a loose modernization of Coward’s play.) The chalk outline of a classic screwball farce with a macabre bent is there, and so is the zippy, rat-a-tat-tat rhythm in the dialogue. It’s also perfectly cast and valiantly performed. What’s missing, then, is the organic snap and fizz, as something about director Edward Hall’s breezy if mostly flat adaptation just never crackles to life. Otherwise, there’s a lot of effort going on in “Blithe Spirit,” and that’s not as much fun.

Making the leap into Hollywood screenwriting in England, 1937, award-winning crime novelist Charles Condomine (Dan Stevens) is facing writer’s block when commissioned to adapt his novel into his first script. His second wife, Ruth (Isla Fisher), tries to keep him on track since she is the daughter of movie producer Henry Mackintosh (Simon Kunz) waiting on Charles' finished product. After Charles and Ruth take in a stage show of clairvoyant Madame Cecily Arcati (Judi Dench) that disastrously proves she is a fraud, he invites her into their home to conduct a private séance. For the first time in her fraudulent career, Madame Arcati actually makes contact, conjuring Charles’ first wife Elvira (Leslie Mann)—his Manhattan muse who died seven years ago—only as a ghost who can only be seen by Charles. Of course, everyone, including Ruth, thinks he is barking mad and hallucinating Elvira. Soon enough, Elvira is throwing tantrums and determined to get rid of her husband’s marital interloper and maybe get Charles on her astral plane.

Written by Nick Moorcroft, Meg Leonard, and Piers Ashworth, “Blithe Spirit” is genteel, lightweight, and almost stultifyingly bland. Their script has a slightly naughtier, even subversive take, making Charles a longtime plagiarist with between-the-sheets dysfunction and giving both Ruth and Elvira more agency. The efforts to make a retro farce, though, just don’t work as smoothly as one would like. Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, and Leslie Mann can all perform broad comedy with the best of them and do bring a level of mirth here, if not much chemistry with each other. As enjoyable as they are, the actors never seem to be doing more than playing dress-up and trying to make some old-fashioned banter pop and sparkle. In fact, Dame Judi Dench feels most at home and actually gets the most emotional depth out of a stock eccentric role, playing Madame Arcati as a grieving widow.

Even though Woody Allen doesn't have a hand in any of this, “Blithe Spirit” plays divertingly and frivolously like “minor Woody Allen." There's a certain charm to watching appealing actors have a good laugh, replicating the wardrobe and wordplay of the good old days, but it feels more like a studied exercise in whimsy without being inspired itself. The period design sure is lovely, and it’s fun to see a few insider details with stand-ins for Hitchcock, DeMille, Garbo, and Gable on the Hollywood sets. If ever there was a movie that you want to like rather than one that you actually do, this “Blithe Spirit” is weak tea with a safe side of sexual innuendo and a fresh feminist ending, and you'll probably forget the whole thing once it’s over. May we just let Noël Coward’s play rest in peace. 

Grade: C 

IFC Films is releasing “Blithe Spirit” (99 min.) in select theaters and on VOD February 19, 2021.