A slip of the mask

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Warning: This article contains plot spoilers

Easy Virtue is set in late 1920s’ Britain. John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), heir to a large aristocratic estate, returns from the continent having been ‘flagged down’ by Larita (Jessica Biel), a racing car driver and thoroughly modern woman. Larita’s modernness is epitomised not only by her profession, but by her dress, bleached blond hair, bright red lipstick, choice of reading matter (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), wide range of European knowledge, and her attitude and approach to life. In all these aspects she appears to epitomise a woman of ‘easy virtue’, completely unacceptable to John’s mother, Veronica (Kristen Scott Thomas).

The news of John’s marriage is a bitter blow to Veronica, who had hoped that he would marry Sarah (Charlotte Riley), heir to the adjoining estate. Veronica appears to be stronger than her husband Jim (Colin Firth), but as the family wait on the driveway for the newly married couple, the rather dishevelled-looking Jim emphasises to the family, ‘You’re British, you can fake it’. As the couple pull up in a spray of gravel, the look of disdain on Veronica’s face increases as she declares ‘Oh . . . you’re American’ as though Larita was something she’d found on her shoe. Much to Veronica’s disgust, Larita immediately makes a connection with Jim, conversing with him in French. Outwardly polite, Larita soon picks up on the subtle undercurrents, declaring to John, ‘Your mother, she loathes me.’ As the film progresses, these undercurrents become less restrained, as the women of the house seek to gain the upper hand over each other.

Easy Virtue is a romantic period film, based upon a play written by Noel Coward in 1924 (which was made as a silent movie by Alfred Hitchcock in 1928). Director and co-writer Stephan Elliot, who is best known for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, was not looking to produce a historically accurate film and has produced a witty, contemporary social comedy, successfully updating the story for the twenty-first century just as the world slipped again towards recession. Great comedy turns are provided by the butler, Furber (Kris Marshall), a clear supporter of Larita, and John’s sisters, Marion (Katherine Parkinson) who searches continually for photos of celebrities who look (nothing) like her dead fiancé, and Hilda (Kimberley Nixon) who is constantly on the look-out for the next salacious news story.

Veronica believes that it is Larita (and her Americanness) who demonstrates ‘easy virtue’, but as the film progresses it becomes clear that it’s the English aristocrats who lack any moral values, including neighbouring Philip (Christian Brassington) who becomes injured whilst cow-tipping. Veronica is merciless in her attempts to get the better of Larita, especially playing upon her ‘allergies’ (clearly seen as a sign of weakness). At first she does this in subtle ways, but the mask slips as the tale deepens, and the family starts to show what they truly think.

The women seem entirely different from each other, but both care for John. Larita cares for him because he appeared young and carefree when she’d recently come from nursing her first husband as he died from cancer. Veronica is very protective of John because he is her ‘boy’, and she suspects that Larita has ulterior motives for the marriage. The servants’ viewpoint, however, gives an inkling that originally the two were not so very different, with the new Mrs Whittaker described as, ‘like the old one before the war’. Jim, one of the ‘romantic lost generation’, survived the First World War in body, but clearly was affected in other ways. As Larita seeks to escape from another confrontation with Veronica, she finds Jim in the garage rebuilding a motorbike. When he describes it (and perhaps himself) as, ‘broken, tarnished and completely useless; guaranteed to keep my wife at bay’, it becomes clear that both Jim and Larita are survivors who have much in common, feeling hemmed in by the arcane ways of the land-owning aristocracy.

The constant battle of wills between Veronica and Larita reaches a head over participation in the local hunt, which Larita promises to join, but doesn’t say how. Philip is very impressed by Larita, quoting Cole Porter’s 1928 lyrics: ‘There’s something wild about that child: she’s so contagious . . . let’s be outrageous . . . let’s misbehave.’ Larita has definitely decided to misbehave, providing a modern answer to the horse and thumbing her nose at Veronica in the process.

However, Larita has a guilty secret, which is finally revealed just after she declares, ‘at least I’m not pretending to be something I’m not.’ She snaps, insisting that this, ‘is not how I came off the assembly line’, and that she ‘can’t change for anybody . . . any more’. She no longer cares about the village gossips, and John complains to Sarah that Larita no longer wants to ‘play along’. John, however, has changed the rules of the game, extending what was supposed to be a short visit to the country seat to many months as he realises his responsibility to what is most important to English aristocrats: the land. Those who have experienced strong life challenges, such as Larita and Jim, are unprepared to invest everything in their worldly goods. At the end of the film, having been ostracised, they demonstrate a masterful tango, and, rather than disappearing into the sunset (which is how the film started with John and Larita), they disappear into the night, accompanied by a 1920s-themed version of ‘Carwash’, part of a great film soundtrack.

Throughout this film, we see the cultured, aristocratic mask and veneer of politeness slip as the characters try to get the better of one another. Many of us are accustomed to wearing our own masks, with ‘Oh yes, I’m fine, everything’s great’ as a standard answer. Masks, however, as demonstrated in Easy Virtue, can only cover the reality for so long. As Jesus said, ‘You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed. You can't hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can't whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day's coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.’ (Luke 12:2-3, The Message). Jesus, however, came to give us freedom from having to live behind such masks. Once we have realised that God himself knows all about us and our guilty secrets, and that he is still willing to accept us completely on the basis of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have no need to hide from others behind masks. It enables us to live truly authentic lives, accepted for who we are, here and now.

Back