The Line of Beauty (2006) User Reviews

The Disparities and Dichotomies Between Classes: Consequences

[gradyharp · 8/10 · 2 January 2007]

Alan Hollinghurst's brilliant novel THE LINE OF BEAUTY has been well adapted for film by Andrew Davies and brought to BBC television by director Saul Dibb and an outstanding cast. That television miniseries is now available on one DVD with each of the three parts intact as seen in the UK (not the parceled version shown in the USA) and it is a satisfying transition from Hollinghurst's visual poetry to cinematic depiction.

The story takes place from 1983 to 1987 in England - the Thatcher years - when class differences, hypocrisies, paparazzi, and homophobia were peaking. Essentially the tour guide through this time is one Nicholas Guest (Dan Stephens), a 'middle class' son of an antiques dealer who has just finished Oxford (on scholarship) and visits the home of his wealthy roommate Toby Fedden (Oliver Coleman) whose father Gerald (Tim McInnerny) is climbing the steps of politics as his warmly understanding and supportive wife Rachel (Alice Krige) looks on and worries about their knotty daughter Cat (Hayley Atwill) who loathes politics and sees the hypocrisy spoken by all of her father's associates. Nick is welcomed into the family with genuine warmth and he is smitten by the grandeur of their lifestyle and the beauty of their home: he becomes their surrogate son when Toby leaves for adventures with his shallow sweetheart, taking care of at times self-mutilating Cat.

Nicholas is gay, finds love with a lower class handsome black man Leo (Don Gilet), and shares his proclivities with Cat, his confidant. Insidiously Nick becomes a full part of the Fedden family, serving as a son would, entertaining at parties with them, and meeting the important people whom Gerald engages in his political pyramid. Among them is a Lebanese family whose wealthy son Wani Ouradi (Alex Wyndham) catches Nick's eye and though Wani is 'engaged' to a girl he also is a severely closeted gay man and Nick and Wani become entwined in drugs and love. When the spectre of AIDS begins to diminish the population of England some secrets are revealed, secrets of sexual liaisons that are intolerable for the Feddens and their associates yet lead to the hypocrisy of affairs within Gerald Fedden's protected world. It is the surfacing of the true lives of the characters that proves to be the downfall of Nicholas and his relationship to the world of wealth as well as the crumbling of the fragile political, media-infested world of Gerald Fedden's creation.

The cast is uniformly excellent and Dibb is able to coax the acrid aura of England of the 1980s with lucidity and a sensitive eye for revealing corruption and fractured human relationships. If the viewer is left with the feeling that Nicholas does not really deserve our concern because of his hollow devotion to wealth as a means to happiness then the point of Hollinghurst's novel has been well served. The film is not without flaws (a pianist at one of the soirées, we are told by supertitles, is paying Grieg's Piano Concerto....when that could not be further from reality!), and insufficient time is given to the Nick/Wani and Nick/Leo relationships to allow us into the inner sanctum of gay life in this tough time, etc., it still is an engrossing drama and one very well played by credible actors. Grady Harp

Hypocrisy and Hubris

[B24 · 8/10 · 2 November 2006]

Now that all three episodes have aired in the U.S., one may fairly comment on the overall production.

Any comparison to The Great Gatsby is at best superficial, given that the only clues are incidental to the main thrust of the story. In most respects it is a uniquely British tale with relevance to any similar American theme to be found in something Reaganesque or Bushite rather than anything from the era of Calvin Coolidge. Interestingly, Margaret Thatcher is labelled in one telling scene as more the tool of the ruling classes than their leader -- just as their American contemporaries in the Republican Party have been.

But the main elements of the story -- class division and envy, reverse snobbery, interethnic relations that have evolved from the disintegration of the Empire -- are less comparable to the scene on this side of the Atlantic. Simple hypocrisy of the kind found in nearly all politicians and the hubris resulting from too much success found too young in life lie at the center of it all. Add to that the drug scene and AIDS in the 1980's and you have a compelling story.

The title is also intriguing. It suggests that beauty may be found in amongst all the hypocritical swill running as counteractive impulses that seem on the surface to be merely eccentric. Thus the character of Nick, casually characterized by the housekeeper as "no good," is really something of an antihero. At the beginning of the story he is all superficial and bright, and at the end he is simply bemused.

It may be melodramatic and a bit soapy, but I liked it.

The Beauty of Thatcher's Britain

[Philby-3 · 8/10 · 28 January 2008]

Lovely young Nick Guest (Dan Stevens) from a middle-class home falls into (unrequited) love with his college mate Toby Fedden (Oliver Coleman), comes to live with Toby's wealthy family in their splendid house in Notting Hill and falls in love with them too – "Brideshead Revisited" in London, in fact. Toby's father Gerald (Tim McInnerney) is a Tory MP and craven admirer of "the Lady", Margaret Thatcher, who is in the ascendant, post Falklands, while his mother Rachel (Alice Krige) is from a wealthy Jewish banking family.

The action, which unfolds in three Acts, is nicely boxed between Thatcher's two re-elections in 1983 and 1987. Nick discovers that the glittering Feddens, including Toby's sister Cat (Hayley Atwell), are not as noble as they seem, and when he becomes an embarrassment to them he is discarded.

The film sticks fairly close to Alan Hollinghurst's novel and retains its Gay sensibility – we see things from Nick's point of view. Somehow the Nick of the film is a more sympathetic character than the Nick of the book – possibly because of Dan Steven's cool performance. Hollinghurst wanted to remind us of what it was like to be Gay in Britain in the 1980s – legalized but subject to widespread homophobia and threatened by the march of AIDS, then a death sentence. The film picks this up very graphically with perhaps greater impact than the book. The wealthy "new money" Thatcherites are given a going over as well (the Lady herself puts in a cameo appearance at the end of Act 2). With supporters like those the Thatcher revolution was always going to be bloody.

Nick himself is more interested in art than politics; his "line of beauty" is a curved line (the "Ogee") drawn by Hogarth which happens to coincide with the line of the male buttocks. His relationship with the Feddens is aspirational rather than mercenary (his lover Wani (Alex Wyndham) provides the cash for their "Ogee" magazine). In the end, one can imagine him, like his father, an antique dealer, smacked down by the upper class he sought to join. (Funnily enough, antique dealing in Britain is full of Public School types – "Lovejoy" is a bit of an aberration.) Andrew Davies has produced a typically seamless adaptation, and virtually all the performances are faultless. Some of the minor roles are the most vividly executed, such as Christopher Fairbanks' Barry Groom, homophobia personified, and Barbara Flynn's common as muck Lady Tipper. The class system in Britain was certainly robust enough to survive Mrs Thatcher – she just created a new class of wealthy philistines.

Inside the gilded balloon

[paul2001sw-1 · 31 May 2006]

Alan Hollinghurst's 'The Line of Beauty' is, at least in this adaptation, a version of 'The Great Gatsby' fitted to 1980s Britain, the story of a young man from an ordinary background who mistakenly harbours too many illusions about the beautiful people of the smart set. The story lacks the utter poignancy of Fitzgerald's book because the hero (who, co-incidentally or not, shares the name of Nick with the other novel's protagonist) only rejects his adopted world when it rejects him; But the screenplay, cinematography, and performances are all first rate, especially that of Tim McInerny, playing a MP whose ultimate ruthlessness, self-righteousness, and rottenness, is hidden beneath a layer of almost genuine charm and kindness. The political overtones of the story are somewhat lost in a treatment that dwells almost exclusively inside the gilded balloon, and all of the characters could be handled less sympathetically with some justification, but the indulgent early mood reaps final reward when things go sour. Screenwriter Andrew Davies made his name with the contemporary series 'A Very Peculiar Practice', but these days seems to concentrate largely on period drama. This aberration proves itself welcome, and leaves one hopeful of more to come.

All the makings of a classic

[marcelproust · 9/10 · 11 April 2006]

Okay, so it may seem unfair to review The Line of Beauty after having only seen Episode One, but the sneaky peek on show last night at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival gave every indication that this adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel is a classic in the making.

Everyone who has read the novel will have his or her own impression of the characters and locales. (I lived in Notting Hill for more than a decade, so my mental picture of the story was probably more vivid than most.) But within minutes of the bravura opening sequence (grafted onto the novel by canny adapter Andrew Davies), director Saul Dibb makes Nick Guest's world his own.

What I found so extraordinary about this adaptation (or at least the first episode) is how cleverly Davies has mined the novel for humour, social commentary and romance. On- screen representations of the upper-middle-classes tend to show us the wholly implausible world of PG Wodehouse, but without Wodehouse's wit, or stick the knife in with bitter class hatred. The Line of Beauty does neither; showing us the Fedden family warts and all. Gerald Fedden MP (in a stunningly good characterisation by Tim McInnerney) is quite the pompous paterfamilias, but is also generous, funny and kind.

As our "eyes and ears" through the story, newcomer Dan Stevens is pitch-perfect; his clear, blue eyes miss nothing as his life becomes more and more entwined with the Feddens and their glittering world.

The clips shown of the following two episodes promise no decline in quality, so if The Line of Beauty does not come quite as close to perfection as Brideshead Revisited - which remains the high watermark of British television drama - it is still shaping up to be landmark adaptation, and not to be missed when it premieres on BBC2 later in May.

Innocence Beguiled

[robertconnor · 9/10 · 9 November 2006]

A naive young man falls in with a wealthy Tory politician and his family in 1980s Britain.

Wonderful adaptation of Hollinghurst's novel, expertly cast. The greed, selfishness, hedonism, ignorance and bigotry that for many sums up the Thatcher era are all on display as Stevens' innocent abroad Nick is drawn in and swept away by the Feddens family. Even as we see Nick become an almost indispensable member of the family, so we know his sweetness and ingenuousness must surely be his undoing...

Stevens is brilliant, effortlessly capturing the essence of the well-meaning and ingratiating Nick, and he is formidably supported by all concerned, from the key players (McInnerny, Atwell, Krige) to the host of fantastic cameos on display. A must-see for anyone who came-of-age in Thatcher's Britain.

Upstairs Downstairs and In and Out

[safenoe · 7/10 · 9 February 2022]

The Line of Beauty is in some ways a social, LGBTI drama amidst high-class politics in the UK. Without Thatcher's reign there would be no The Line of Beauty for sure. It's also about class, and the lines of class that grew during the Thatcher years.

The Line of Beauty has impressive production values, and I'd love for a sequel set in the Blair years. For the sequel I nominate acclaimed British actor Danny Dyer to play the lead role.

Timely warning about the Tories

[rugger-4 · 9/10 · 3 June 2006]

9 years after the Conservatives were in power you might think the BBC would look back fondly at them as they did recently with their documentary 'Tory Tory Tory'. However this miniseries drenches any warmth you might have for those 80s Thatcherites like a freezing bucket of cold water.

By far the highlight is watching a succession of British luvvies line up one by one to spit venom at angelic Nick Guest in the last episode because he is gay. You can see they all had fun acting against type in those scenes but for all that it's still a timely reminder that when the chips are down, as they were at the end of the 80s when the horror of AIDS was touching virtually everyone in the LGBT community, they'll kick you when they should be helping you, e.g. Clause 28. For in this series all the Tories conspicuously tell Nick how much they love and value him at regular intervals only to disown him the minute they need a scape goat.

So in the plus column we have the keenly observed 80s setting, the sex, the melodrama. The only minuses being the inexplicable schizophrenia displayed by the Conservative characters. But I think maybe that's the point because that's how it really was.

parts 1 & 2 very good, BUT part 3 pure SOAP OPERA

[jaybob · 6/10 · 7 March 2007]

This is a 3 part BBC mini-series about upper class folk & members of Parliment also a few gay persons as well.

We did see & RAVE about TO CATCH A KING a few months back. Line of Beauty has somewhat of the same type story BUT is far inferior in comparison.

Thw first 2 hours of this teleplay are very well done, BUT the last hour is pure soap opera melodrama,at the end of which I felt I wasted 3 hours.

This film is based on a prize winning novel & tells the story of gay & political life during the Thatcher administration (1980's).

In the 80's or even early 90's this tale would have have had more interest,. The last hour dates it miserably, (spoiler alert) a few characters die (AIDS)

& I felt nothing for them, mainly cause they were not that likable. I find nothing likable about cocaine users. OH another spoiler alert, That is the line of beauty. the line of coke before it is sniffed.

Nearly any of the cast were not familiar to me, The acting & characterizations were OK,nothing noteworthy, Good production values & good music with n good song score,

If the last hour were better I would have given this a better review.

Ratings: **1/2 (out of 4) 69 points (out of 100; IMDb 6 out of 10

The sexier side of the Tory dominated 80's

[thelipmister · 9/10 · 21 May 2006]

I watched the first episode of the line of beauty last Wednesday (17th May) and I personally enjoyed it. I, myself am only 22 years old and so I was born in the eighties but obviously don't remember it. The story follows one man through his sexual awakening in amidst all the fake glamour of the 80's Tory government. The political side of it is interesting to watch, but the main focus was watching Dan Stevens character (Nick Guest) meeting other men. I have not seen Dan Stevens before in anything else, but from now on I will be on the look out for anything else he appears in. His crystal clear blue eyes, and the way he plays the character's naiveté (in the first episode anyway) is well done. I will definitely watch the next two episodes and may even read the book if I can get hold of it. I recommend tuning in, (espically if your gay) for the sex scenes alone but also for the clever portrayal of the Thatcherite years and how it both destroyed and made the country we are all living in today.

Young Man Attempts To Mix Beyond His Class: A Compelling Tale

[museumofdave · 8/10 · 18 February 2013]

Because this BBC mini-series is so perfectly cast, and because the sense of time and place are so vivid and the performances subtle and thoughtful, I found this adaptation of the book on a level with the book itself. In the almost three hours, it manages to depict a relatively innocent, intelligent young man as he hitches himself to an upper class political family and learns some painful lessons both about the culture and about himself; like so many young men driven by dreams of wealth and success, he feels that merely contributing a lively presence is enough, that insinuating himself within a wealthy enclave will bring him status and perhaps some sexual favors.

Very slim storyline......three episodes in which nothing very much happens

[hesketh27 · 2/10 · 2 June 2006]

I decided to watch this serial after seeing the endless adverts for it on the BBC in the weeks prior to it starting. I watched it despite the fact that I don't like the pretentious kind of stuff that Alan Hollinghurst writes (sorry to his fans but I think we have a case of the emperor's new clothes with this author's work). I admit that the acting is excellent, it is beautifully shot and I was reasonably entertained by it - however- I found that the storyline was extremely thin and after watching all three episodes feel very unsatisfied with this rather empty production. The 'explicit' gay sex that the media droned on about has all been done before on TV - several times - so it was nothing very shocking I'm afraid. Full marks for production values but low ones for storyline/content I'm afraid.

Indeed a Beautiful Thing

[isabelle1955 · 27 January 2008]

I quite often see movies made of books I've read. Less often do I watch a film (or TV series in this case) and then read the book. But that's exactly what I did after watching The Line of Beauty on DVD. This BBC production of the superb Alan Hollinghurst novel, adapted for TV by Andrew Davies (the author of so many great adaptations for the BBC) is simply very good. It is perfectly cast and beautifully filmed. One of the best adaptations I've seen in a long time. It's very true to its source material yet at the same time can never replace reading the novel, which I strongly recommend anyone who enjoys beautiful writing, to do.

The setting is 1980s London, Thatcher is in power and our hero, young Nick Guest (a perfectly cast Dan Stevens), has just gained a first at Oxford. Newly uncloseted as gay, but still a virgin, he arrives to stay at the upscale London house of college friend Toby Fedden (Oliver Coleman), the son of newly elected pompous Tory MP Gerald Fedden (Tim McInnerny, just terrific in this role.) Also in the household are Gerald's rich and rather saintly wife Rachel (Alice Krige – written forever into my heart as the Borg Queen unfortunately) and unstable, bipolar daughter Catherine, or The Cat, as she is known to the family (Hayley Atwell).

Nick is ostensibly studying for a PhD in the more obtuse aspects of the writing of Henry James, but mostly his time is spent pursuing his first lover, the beautiful but prosaic Leo (Don Gilet), and his first love, beauty. Cat becomes his confidante in his pursuit of Leo, and he in turn is supposed to keep an eye on her as she veers through life on a swerving path of extremes. Nick is an aesthete, unworldly in the games of politics and money that he finds himself observing, and perhaps just a little disingenuous. He himself comes from a more humble, country town background, and is rather in love with the Feddens' life of easy wealth and beautiful possessions, into which he slots readily.

This is played out against the back drop of the encroaching AIDS epidemic and Thatcher's politics. If Billy Elliot showcased one aspect of Thatcherism 'up North' in the 1980s, then this is one aspect of what was happening 'down South' in the same period. And in some ways, I guess it could be Britain's belated equivalent of Angels in America; Thatcher/Reagan politics and the onset of AIDS. Nick's affair with a beautiful but spoiled millionaire playboy, Wani Ouradi (Alex Wyndham), leads him into a cocaine fuelled life of high society parties, European travel, random sex and an esoteric, arty magazine (Ogee) and film which will never get made. Money is made and wasted with unconcern in this brave new Thatcher world. As his friends begin to get ill and die, Nick seems immune to it all, cocooned in the Fedden's beautiful home. But life begins to unravel as AIDS looms larger and larger, Cat denounces her father's extra marital affair to the press, hypocrisies are exposed and the family, of which he thought he was a part, ultimately closes ranks against Nick.

I can understand that if you never lived through the 80s in Britain, this may all seem like an interesting but rather unreal and irrelevant look back at recent history. I must be 3 or 4 years older than Nick, but unfortunately – or fortunately I guess, depending on how you look at it – I spent most of the 1980s working offshore, doing my small bit to keep the North Sea oil industry afloat and profitable, so much of what happened in London passed me by, and news was heard in occasional snippets, bookended by the shipping forecasts, when we could get the ship's radio to work.

Hideously expensive, hangover inducing Norwegian lager was our drug of choice. Come to think of it, most of Thatcherite economics was based on the bonanza of North Sea oil, so maybe I'm partly to blame? Anyway, I found it fascinating and terrific viewing. They captured the pomposities and hypocrisies of the era, the waste and excess so well, and the groveling of the MPs to "the Lady". It is also very funny in places. I can't recall if this is in the film as well as the book, but I am still smiling at Cat's description of a sequined Margaret Thatcher as resembling a Country and Western star. I wish I'd thought of that!

The eternal longing of belonging

[alcorcrisan · 10/10 · 28 October 2017]

One of the rare movies / series in which the romantic aspects of the novel get a perhaps superlative treatment as they deserve. Allan Hollinghurst's novel has a special significance to me, but that is beside the point here. The film has a special appeal, a nostalgia, a remembrance of things past to which the music deserves particular praise. There is no other film that I can remember that moves me to such a degree. Yes, I was there, in the London of those years. Yes, I was lonely and yearning for some human touch. Yes, it all comes back. It's hard to describe, for those of you who did not live those times. This is a true gem to be treasured and revisited whenever your daily life seems unbearable. Dan Stevens is the innocent hero of his life. He may have become a better known actor later on, but this is his defining moment and film.

Highly Underrated Masterpiece!

[xiaotianxie · 10/10 · 23 August 2023]

Dan Steven's performance is superb. He seamlessly embodies the nuances of this character, offering a portrayal that is both compelling and deeply empathetic. His ability to convey a wide spectrum of emotions, from vulnerability to strength, adds layers of authenticity to the narrative.

"The Line of Beauty" not only offers us a mesmerizing tale of class, love, sexuality, politics, and personal struggles but also introduces us to the hidden treasure that is Dan Stevens' acting prowess. His performance resonates long after the credits roll, leaving an indelible mark on the series and solidifying his place as an actor deserving of more recognition. As the credits roll, it becomes evident that the world of entertainment has yet to fully grasp the extent of Dan Stevens' brilliance.

80's hate fest

[yawnmower1 · 4/10 · 27 February 2008]

This British pot-boiler has one thing going for it: the young men are uniformly good looking. The older men are opinionated, right-wing Thatcherites whose behavior brings back all the acrimony of the Reagan/Thatcher years. Young or old, however, morals in this three-part mini-series are universally suspect and no one comes off particularly well.

Nick is a handsome young gay man fresh out of Oxford. It is not pivotal to the story, but he has an extraordinarily beautiful head of hair which makes watching this drivel much easier. Nick comes to London with a friend, whose father Gerald is a rich conservative politician, and babysits his sister Cat while the family frolics in the south of France. They neglect to inform him that, when upset, Cat cuts herself with an assortment of knives and other kitchen implements. Nick mistakes their self-serving 'gratitude' for affection and moves in, finding out too late just how much they despise and patronize him. Inexplicably, Nick lives in this house for four years but, as the plot depends on this point, it's best not to question it.

While Nick is most pleasing to look at, he is unbearably obsequious. His coy subjection to rich bigots soon had me climbing the walls. Deeply closeted except to Cat (she guesses his big secret on sight), he does like a little anonymous sex just so we know he is actually gay. Though it hardly seems possible, Nick takes a lover who is even more closeted than he.

Supercilious Tories scorn and insult the two blacks in the film, so imagine the venom which spews forth when Nick's sexual orientation is reported in a tabloid. Gerald, in true Tory fashion, has become involved in several personal and financial scandals, so the revelations about Nick add to his embarrassment. This gives Gerald one final opportunity to roundly castigate the hapless boy.

Except for one brief moment of indignation, Nick takes the abuse heaped upon him in silence and tacit agreement. Denial, self-loathing, naiveté, or ignorance? You decide, if you can manage to sit through this whole thing without throwing something at the set.

'They've really taken you in haven't they?'

[PippinInOz · 5 November 2011]

The above quote is from 'The Line of Beauty' - spoken by a character to Nick Guest. As his name suggests, Nick 'thinks' he is a guest of the upper class Feddons, when the line of dialogue 'They've really taken you in haven't they?' is spoken about half way through the series, you probably find yourself mumbling to yourself, as I did: 'Haven't they just....'

Nick is not a guest in the Feddon household. Nick is a Guest. The 'Feddons' are wonderfully named in this tale of 1980s Class and Thatcherism, the allusion to them being the class who 'feed on' was not lost on me. (As in they 'fed on'.......)

And they feed off Nick even while he thinks he has fallen into a heavenly place - all polite but raffish upper class shenanigans, art works, the country pile. Nick is smitten by the 'lines of beauty' that meet his eye everywhere he looks.

All of the contributions on this site have been excellent to read - thank you! I am particularly interested in the links to 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Brideshead Revisited' - the film that kept coming back to me though was 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' - the same awe struck young man, the same love of 'beauty', the same comments on class and money.

The scenes between Nick and the 'perfect servant' (the old retainer!) who keeps her mouth shut and runs the house are priceless. Nick, in these scenes, reminds me of the position of the 19th Century Governess in households. A bit too 'upper' to be included with the rest of the servants (who did not include her) but still a paid member of staff, not family. Considering that Nick begins his tenure in the house 'to keep an eye on Cat' this analogy is not entirely far from the mark. The housekeeper's refusal to be 'matey' with him says it all. At the end when she tells him that right from the start she thought he was 'no good' did you feel hurt for Nick? Well, I did. Despite so many traits that really really made me want to dislike him A LOT! Those traits being: his ability to switch off any critique about ANYTHING as long as he was okay and could swan along with his posh family.

Nick was the Governess to Cat.

Nick was also the 'resident gay man' who schmoozes the Feddon's guests with his charm, including Margaret Thatcher. Tim McInnerny is brilliant as the Tory Gerald Feddon, who, unaccountably, is part of a specific group of Conservative men who loved her 'Strict Nanny' persona. Shudder!

LIke Nick Guest, Margaret Thatcher was the child of a small business owner. So it makes artistic sense that they dance together at the Feddon's party in her honour.

John Lydon made some astute comments when he heard about Elton John being conferred a knighthood, he more or less said that the Upper class always liked a Court Jester to entertain them, a Fool.

Nick Guest, in so many ways, is The Court Jester, or Fool. The extent to which Nick is seen as a servant is in those cataclysmic moments at the end of the third episode. When Gerald Fedden blusters about Nick's 'background' ('as if we would choose you!') Nick has to acknowledge what the viewer has known for some time. Like a servant who has been caught out shagging the Lord's son, he is sent packing 'in disgrace'.

Any young person who was born after about 1985 should see this television series to fully understand to what extent the AIDS virus decimated people, particularly gay men. 'The Line of Beauty' reveals the fear and paranoia surrounding this period very well. The photograph of Leo ravaged by the disease and the shell of his Lebanese / English lover as he walks into the restaurant (all eyes watching, the word 'AIDS' is the elephant in the room) is heartbreaking.

But in the end......my memory of this wonderful piece of television is the tale of a young man who does not even look at the World outside of his gilded cage. (Miners' strike, CND etc)

.....and in the end, my sympathy for the characters is permeated by my anger at people who always think they can look the other way while the world falls apart.

There lies this programmes genius. For me at least.

Nice Looking Well Constructed Void

[meaninglessbark · 5/10 · 20 January 2013]

The Line of Beauty looks great and is well acted and that's about it. It's not terrible, but there's nothing engaging about the story either.

The Line of Beauty feels a bit like Brideshead Revisited in that the story is about an outsider who becomes an intimate of a wealthy family. But the Line lacks the depth of Brideshead, the story meanders until some dramatic plot points are thrown in. The characters have nothing going on beyond their descriptions, they're more like sketches of characters. And there's nothing appealing about any character. That, along with the meandering story, makes it difficult to stay interested and keep watching.

But flaws aside the Line of Beauty is fine for an evening of empty TV viewing, especially if you're doing something else at the same time.

Nick Guest meet Nick Carraway. "Gatsby" updated.

[radkins · 12 December 2006]

"The Line of Beauty," which I recently saw on Logo, is a wonderful film, but it reminded me heavily of "The Great Gatsby" in that it makes the narrator a character in the scenario. Sam Waterston was given the role of Daisy Buchanan's poorer cousin, Nick Carraway. In "Line" Nick Guest serves in much the same way, with the exception that Nick Guest never realized he was an outsider, whereas Nick Carraway always did. Also much like Hemingway's reaction to F. Scott Fitzgerald's (author of "Gatsby") that "The rich are very different from us" - "Yes, they have more money", Guest finds out that human emotions, in this case recrimination, blame and betrayal, are just as much a part of the upper class as the lower. Guest and Gatsby both admire the upper class and at some point in each story, believe themselves equal to them, until each are made to pay for the sins of those they admire. In Gatsby's case, he is mistakenly shot by the wife of a garage mechanic who believes him to be Daisy's husband Tom, who is both wealthy and immoral. It is a classic story of social separatism, told with an extra layer of the start of the AIDS epidemic. It is a fine job of writing and acting all around. I was particularly impressed with the final slap in the face Nick gets from the housekeeper, who should have been more sympathetic to Nick, but who is also self-deluded in her thinking that she is part of the family, and not an outsider.

A self-indulgent look at the 80s

[Coralknight · 5/10 · 16 October 2017]

As someone who grew up in Europe during the 1980s, "the Line of Beauty" just seems like a self-indulgent memoir, written by someone who happened to have industry connections to make it into a production. Yes, we all remember it wasn't "cool" or "in" to be gay back then, and we all remember AIDS was scaring everyone witless. But take away the job/industry back-story and you're just left with some social-climbing, name-dropping nobody trying to interest us in who he knew way back when. This simply wasn't compelling, interesting or unique.

Plot? Point?

[BruceUllm · 2/10 · 8 June 2007]

Perhaps I couldn't find the DVD menu selection for PLOT: ON OFF. Clearly, the default is OFF. When the end credits began to roll, I couldn't believe that was it. Like our poor, but beautiful protagonist, I felt used, dirty, cheap....

The characters were drawn in very broad strokes and the writer's disdain for wealthy Thatcherites was all to apparent. I consider myself a "Roosevelt Democrat", but would appreciate a bit more subtlety.

Of course, the problem could be with me. I see that many others seem to find some meaning or message in this picture. Alas, not I.

The only thing that kept me from giving this a "1" was the nice scenery, human and plant.

Shallow and superficial

[qui_j · 4/10 · 3 August 2023]

This three part series seems to speed though the years and fails to really tell any sort of story at all. It's as if someone just wanted to string together a sequence of random events that took place in the Thatcher era in the hope that a story would emerge. Maybe the novel on which the series is based actually told the story in greater detail, and in a more coherent fashion. However, with the series, dialog is sparse, sequences are non-linear and the episodes appear to be in a race against time to get it all out in the 3 episodes. That doesn't happen. The acting is good, but the story is told in a superficial, cliched and rushed format!

Fiction Drama - Not Factual!

[jaybs · 4/10 · 25 May 2006]

So far after week two of "The lone of Beauty" I am a little disappointed.

Some of the acting is good, as long as we except that it is only drama.

I am unsure how people can feel that this FICTIONAL DRAMA is "factual" coverage of the "Thatcher" years - it is okay as drama, but I feel the award winning book is still much better.

I Wonder if the BBC will ever give us the follow up and the next part of the drama and the years that follow with "Things Can Only Get Better" finishing with 2006 and the Fact that we are still waiting! with that promise from a Government that is full of sleaze.

Absolute Drivel

[robdavis381 · 1/10 · 29 April 2024]

I NEVER give something I watch all the way through such a low rating, but I feel compelled to do so here.

It was only 3 episodes, beginning to end and it should have been so easy to get through, right? It wasn't until I had finished and left it to soak in my brain a couple of days that I realized how much this the proverbial "tempest in a teapot." The time and location is Britain's Margaret Thatcher days, full of trumpesque bravado and heartlessness toward the not rich of the country. The family in question in the summary is completely disfunctional and dependent on Thatcher's oppressive right wing years.

Enter a young, beautiful man in their family (at least he has brilliant blue eyes), a somewhat 'puffy' faced Dan Stevens, and they latch onto him like a second Savior.

This is only Dan's second major cinema job according to IMDB and he had yet mastered the use of his eyes to portray emotions as he does later in his career, so his performance seems not wooden, but blank. Therefore, as the narrative more and more depends on his character, the less we get of the important emotions being shared. This is fatal to the production, I feel.

I cannot, under any circumstances, recommend this 'mini series' to anyone.

I really like Dan's later works, especially 'the guest'.