The screenplay by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies is based on the 1945 novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh, which previously had been adapted in 1981 as the television serial Brideshead Revisited.

Although he aspires to become an artist, middle-class Charles Ryder reads history at the University of Oxford, where he befriends the flamboyant and wealthy Lord Sebastian Flyte.

Jealous of his attention to his sister, Sebastian sets out to end this friendship, and on their return to Britain, Lady Marchmain makes it clear that Charles cannot marry Julia since he is not Catholic and professes to be an atheist.

Later that day, at a party given by the family, Charles is shocked when Lady Marchmain announces that the celebration is in honour of Julia's engagement to Canadian businessman Rex Mottram.

Just as they are driving out, however, they pass two cars arriving: Lord Marchmain is terminally ill and has returned with Cara to spend his final days in his home.

Actors Paul Bettany, Jude Law, and Jennifer Connelly were signed for the lead roles by the original director David Yates for Warner Independent Pictures in 2004.

However, constant budget issues stalled the film's production and Yates left the project to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The novel ends with Charles entering the chapel and kneeling down to pray using "ancient and newly learned words", thus implying he has recently converted to Catholicism.

He blamed director Jarrold and screenwriters Davies and Brock "for finding so little new or interesting to say... and for systematically stripping Waugh's novel of its telling nuances and provocative ideas."

"[7] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed, "While elegantly mounted and well acted, the movie is not the equal of the TV production, in part because so much material had to be compressed into such a shorter time.

In Brideshead, Jarrold seems too often to consciously be making an in-quotation-marks classy picture, much like last year's Atonement, in which the costumes and setting are just so, but the human drama gets lost amid the pictorial pleasantries.

That the film is neither a true triumph nor a total disaster makes it somewhat difficult to justify revisiting Brideshead, apart from the hope it will inspire someone somewhere to pick up the book.

"[9] David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a very noble movie, which makes it interesting at times, but not often enough... What Jarrold has done right is to hire Andrew Davies to work with Jeremy Brock on the adaptation.

"[10] David Ansen of Newsweek suggested, "Think of Jarrold's briskly paced, stylish abridgment as a fine introduction to Waugh's marvelously melancholy elegy.

"[11] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly graded the film B and commented, "Brideshead Revisited is opulent and watchable, yet except for Thompson's acting, it's missing something – a grander, more ambivalent vision of the England it depicts dying out.

He added, "In trying to shoehorn Waugh's novel into a two-hour movie, the filmmakers have left characters underdeveloped while skipping over plot points and condensing material that surely requires greater exposition.

At first, it is hard to engage emotionally in a story that leaps around in time and skirts over what should be key events, but the film grows progressively stronger and more moving.