Julian Jarrold’s glossy film version of Brideshead Revisited is reassuringly expensive and impeccably well-dressed. It is also haunted by a stifling sense of déjà vu. Haven’t we been to these stuffy parts before? After the first reel it feels uncomfortably like we never left.

It’s always a pleasure to revisit the decadence of Castle Howard, but Brideshead fans will be disappointed by the lack of fresh twists. Jarrold’s limp and glossy movie makes no effort to distance its tortured drama from the iconic television series shot in the same setting in 1981. Perhaps Jarrold means to cash in on the nostalgia for the lighter, more languorous television adaptation. If so it will mean nothing to new audiences who have yet to taste the cruel pleasure of Evelyn Waugh’s damning comedy of upper-crust manners.

The story is sandwiched by the bittersweet memories of Matthew Goode’s young and handsome army officer, Charles Ryder. He is scarred for life when he falls under the spell of a wealthy family. A platonic friendship at Oxford with Ben Whishaw’s exotic aristocrat, Sebastian Flyte, becomes damagingly intense when Charles is introduced to the addictive privileges of Brideshead. The secret homosexual gropes and clumsy kisses are as sexually exciting as frozen peas.

Family suppers sour into grim battles of will when Charles falls in love with Sebastian’s tease of a sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). The film turns positively nasty when the hero is caught by Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson) stalking Julia. Thompson is a chilly and manipulative marvel as the mad matriarch with an obsession with the Roman Catholic faith. It poisons her heartbroken and alcoholic son. And it destroys her family.

The repressed victims are beautifully framed by Jarrold. The acting is faultless. But there is no reason why we should be revisiting Brideshead. The melodrama is so damp and overwrought it’s hard to care about these old ghosts.

12A, 132 minutes

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