[.ca] Stiff Upper Lips (Widescreen)

Varoom with a view...:
The posh filmmaking of Merchant Ivory has always tried to be beautiful, quaint and literate. With many successes and failures to their name including COURTESANS OF BOMBAY, MAURICE, HOWARD'S END, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY and A ROOM WITH A VIEW, these films have also acquired something else. The have become the able subject of parody. STIFF UPPER LIPS accomplishes that to a certain extent with its clash between Merchant/Ivory and Zucker Borthers (TOP SECRET!) storytelling. It is designed for fans of the period literadramas, others will miss much of the humor and should look elsewhere for the evenings entertainment. Often times, the film is unsuccessful when it tackles elements of the Merchant Ivory films that were already parody in the films source or when the pacing parallels the same. Advertising for this film prepared the world (errr, very small world) for a bawdy ... comedy, which never hit the screen. There are sexual references, but they are far from bawdy. The performances are good especially Sean Pertwee as the idiotic brother George. The DVD has a standard audio/video transfer and offers a couple nice laughs.

Where comedy fears to tread:
If ever there was a genre ripe for parody, it is the Merchant Ivory school of film-making. If ever there was a film that failed so miserably to parody the genre, it is "Stiff Upper Lips", which makes "Scary Movie" seems like "Annie Hall". How very talented actors like Prunella Scales, Frank Finlay and Peter Ustinov (who deserves to be sent to Siberia for his performance) allow themselves to be part of this disaster is beyond comprehension. This movie has no redeeeming features whatsoever.

How well do you know your British movies?:
Granted this isn't a high brow humor movie, but it isn't supposed to be. It is hysterical if you take it for what it is- a movie about sex that made fun of all the aspects of Merchant Ivory films and Masterpiece Theatre that needed to be laughed at. Some of the parodies were really very clever, my favorite being the Mouret Fanfare played on the sitar, while others were on the overdone side. On the whole though this movie is great if you're well versed in quite a bit of British film.

Funny but dirty:
There are some undeniably funny moments in this spoof of Merchant Ivory's lush literary films such as "A Room with a View" and "A Passage to India." Indeed, it was a genre that was ripe for a good parody. Peter Ustinov is especially funny as an English imperialist in India, who needs to sit on hunks of British lawn while he has tea. However, I found this movie to be so crammed with sex jokes that it bordered on the peurile. Certainly the sexual repression of the proper English movies was a good target for comedy, but I think this film goes a little overboard with its endless sex jokes until one wonders whether the writers have more than one string to their violin.

Enchanting:
For those who get it, delightful. For those who don't....well, I'm sorry, but it's just not the movie's fault.