Welcome to London in the 1930s, when a dashing group of young hedonists and would-be artists scorned public propriety and enjoyed multiple pleasures as party animals at various dances and all-night extravaganzas of drinking and drugs. Arriving in England after finishing his first novel in Monte Carlo, Adam Fenwick-Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore) has it confiscated by a prudish customs officer (Jim Carter) who is offended by the title "Bright Young Things" and the author's pseudonym of Sue de Nimes. His imperious Canadian publisher, Lord Monomark (Dan Aykroyd), is very upset and refuses to pay him until he rewrites it. Without any money or a way of earning it, Adam informs his longtime girlfriend Nina Blount (Emily Mortimer) that he will not be able to marry her. She suggests that he see Colonel Blount (Peter O'Toole) and ask for a gift. The old codger pulls a fast one by giving him a check signed Charlie Chaplin.
When Lord Simon Balcairn (James McAvoy), a young gossip columnist employed by a tabloid owned by Monomark, meets an untimely end, Adam takes the job and along with Nina creates columns based on imaginary figures and their obsessions. The gap between the moralistic upper class and the bohemian set is perfectly captured in a scene where flapper Agatha (Fenella Woolgar) after a long night of partying accompanies the Prime Minister's wayward daughter home for a nightcap, then staggers into the breakfast room of the PM (Bill Paterson), his stuffy wife (Imelda Staunton), and their family. They are appalled at the vulgar presence of Agatha and even more stunned when their home is mentioned in the tabloids.
Writer and director Stephen Fry has done a fine job adapting this satirical 1930 novel by Evelyn Waugh for the screen. The story zips along as Adam's wedding with Nina keeps getting postponed. He is in pursuit of a mysterious Major (Jim Broadbent) who owes him the money he needs to make himself financially presentable. Meanwhile, things get even more complicated when Ginger Littlejohn (David Tennant), a childhood friend who is now wealthy, reappears in Nina's life.
Fry, who gave such a stunning performance as Oscar in the movie Wilde, seems to relish all the characters here — from the flamboyant Miles (Michael Sheen) to Mrs. Melrose Ape (Stockard Channing), who appears briefly as an American evangelist delivering a tirade against all the bright young things who do nothing but follow their flesh into sin and debauchery. For these rebels as well as for their contemporary equivalents, play is a noble pastime, and they want to give it all they've got while they are still young and full of energy.
