There’s a review of this movie at the Noel Coward Society Website which does the basics nicely.
Amongst the felicities, the casting of Jessica Biel as the Woman with a Past. It’s difficult to adapt a ‘stagy’ stage play, one that exploits the big entrance, the expressive group, the d?nouement with the hero centre stage. Keep too much of that stuff, and the film goes dead; do too much, in an effort to avoid stasis, and you’re out on your own with an unrelated mise-en-sc?ne. (Opera films offer hideous examples of both kinds of failure.)
Coward’s play is full of big scenes and strong confrontations, often with Biel’s character front and centre. Biel holds it together with the complete self-possession of a former model and the presence of a first-rate romantic actress. Continue reading »