REVIEW Novel, film skewer prewar-era madness

Watching all the booze, cocaine and sex makes a society columnist sick.
By JAMI BERNARD
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The social satire in Evelyn Waugh's 1930 novel "Vile Bodies" is so acidic it could eat through celluloid.
Actor Stephen Fry, in his first directing gig, neutralizes the acid creatively, while simultaneously doing Waugh proud.
Renamed "Bright Young Things" and adapted for the screen by Fry himself, this is a wickedly funny skewering of a prewar London society gone mad with frivolity.
The scions of faded or faux aristocracy party like it's 1999. They scandalize their elders, seek increasing stimulation for their jaded souls and ignore impending war. Someone will have to settle this bill.
Unrecognizable even to themselves, no one gets anyone's name right, and no one much minds.
These are the Paris Hiltons of their day, inspiring gossip that actually changes the parameters of journalism.
Indeed, when aspiring but naive novelist Adam Symes (Stephen Campbell Moore) becomes a society columnist out of necessity, he goes by a fake name to invent fake fashions (the green bowler hat) that are no more ridiculous than the fashions that prevail.
It's such a frenzied round of cocaine, booze, sex and forced merriment that Adam finally despairs of all those "vile bodies" writhing together.
It's just "too, too sick-making," as Adam's socialite friend Agatha Runcible might say before running off to destroy a prime minister's career or drive a racecar into the unknown.
What's depicted
The movie is a fast and furious portrait of a generation on the brink of disaster. It traces Adam's on-again, off-again engagement to Nina (Emily Mortimer), whose wedding is contingent on his prospects, which change with head-spinning ease.
"BYT" certainly "gets" Waugh's humor, but also humanizes the colorful characters. The altered ending may infuriate purists, but it is true to Waugh's spirit and probably a better choice than leaving the audience eviscerated.
The roster of memorable faces conveys what the book couldn't or wouldn't -- that these characters are not just ninnies caught up in an era's whims, but also desperately confused, hurting and endangered.
Mortimer is particularly fine as Adam's fiance & eacute;. In her nuanced way, Mortimer conveys that the hip language of Nina's day is really a code to mask fear and desperation.
Excellent actors fill out the many frenetic bit parts, including a blustering Jim Broadbent as the slippery "drunken major," and Peter O'Toole as Nina's off-the-rails father.
There are also welcome snippets of Stockard Channing in all her fury, Dan Aykroyd as a steely newspaper magnate, plus Simon Callow and John Mills.
The most fascinating face by far in a movie screaming with them is that of Fenella Woolgar as flighty socialite Runcible. It's not just that gorgeously epic nose, it's those eyes gleaming with cocaine and madness.
If Woolgar were to receive a supporting-actress Oscar nomination, it would be just too, too delicious.