Blithe Spirit is a frantically paced film with many inconsistencies

BLITHE SPIRIT

12A, 96mins

★★★☆☆

LIVE plays exited the stage during the pandemic but you can get your theatre fix with a new screen adaptation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.

The comic play, which was made into a wonderful 1945 film starring Rex Harrison, tells the story of award-winning novelist Charles Condomine (Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens) suffering writer’s block after years of critical success.

As he struggles to turn one of his works into a screenplay, second wife Ruth (Isla Fisher) is on the receiving end of his frustrations.

She confesses to a friend they have not been active “between the sheets” and Charles admits: “Big Ben has stopped chiming.”

These lines, delivered in clipped, plummy English accents, conjure up memories of Victoria Wood’s Acorn Antiques sketches.

After being amusing for a couple of minutes, they soon become cringeworthy and frustrating.

Desperate for inspiration, Charles has an idea while watching spiritualist medium Madame Arcati (Judi Dench) and thinks that communicating with the beyond has dramatic potential.

But during a séance at his home, Arcati opens the door to the spirit of his first wife Elvira (Lesley Mann), who died seven years earlier in a horse-riding accident.

While Elvira haunts his every waking moment, Charles becomes newly infatuated with his dead wife — especially when she cures his writer’s block and helps him finish his screenplay.

But Elvira is not happy that Charles has moved on with Ruth, the daughter of the movie bigshot who hired Charles to pen that screenplay.

So the ghost decides to cause no end of mischief in the couple’s home.

There are a few twists in this frantically paced film — as well as many inconsistencies.

Elvira’s ghost can’t touch Charles without her hand going through his face, yet she can play the piano and pick up objects.

Stevens and Fisher play their parts well but both are crying out for a better script.

Though Dame Judi is superb, of course, even her character gets lost in the chaos. Overall, this famous stage play fluffs its lines on screen.

  •  Out now on Sky Cinema

THE NEW MUSIC

(15) 83mins

★★☆☆☆

PUNK, Parkinson’s disease and piano are the unlikely narrative cornerstones of this sweet and big-hearted tale set in Dublin.

Chiara Viale’s directorial debut introduces us to 25-year-old Adrian (Cillein McEvoy), a classical pianist who once played sellout venues and graced magazine covers, only for his world to fall apart after a diagnosis of Parkinson’s.

With his condition compromising his playing and his future bleak, Adrian flees home and his overprotective mother (Paula McGlinchey) to move in with three music-obsessed flatmates unaware of his past.

Will (Jack Fenton), David (Patrick O’Brien) and Jodie (Martina Babisova) love punk, and play together in their band The Cellmates.

Despite his initial resistance, Adrian’s new friends draw him out of his shell as he swaps his suit jacket for a leather bomber, comes to terms with his diagnosis and embraces life again.

This aspirational indie film has a heartfelt message but the script is hit-and-miss and while Adrian is a convincing and interesting character, those around him too often fall flat. Jodie and Will are underdeveloped and deserve more.

But tunes are at this Irish toe-tapper’s heart – and David Sangster’s original score hits all the right notes.

  • Streaming from Jan 18

STARDUST

(15) 109mins

THIS David Bowie biopic starts with the singer spinning around in a red 2001: A Space Odyssey-style spacesuit before waking up on an aeroplane.

But unfortunately, while Elton John biopic Rocketman was a blast, Stardust does not even get off the launchpad.

One big issue is that it does not contain a single Bowie song. What a missed opportunity.

You can just imagine Changes playing as Bowie transforms into Ziggy Stardust, or Rebel Rebel as he confounds convention by wearing a dress.

As we saw in Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody, the trade-off in securing the rights to great music is a director has to accept the interference of the songs’ owners.

Freed of such constraints, filmmaker Gabriel Range could have created a Bowie movie as experimental as the man himself. Instead, he opts for a neatly made buddy road trip across America in 1971.

We see Bowie (actor and singer Johnny Flynn) team up with publicist Ron Oberman (Glow’s Marc Maron). In between, there are flashbacks to the singer’s schizophrenic brother and a clunking thesis about Bowie’s split personality.

Absolute Beginners might have done a better job.

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