Stiff Upper Lips (1997)
Prunella Scales is brilliant here as a aristocratic matriarch who takes her soppy Edwardian family on a grand tour of Italy (Little Dorrit maybe?) and then onto India in which many awful (for the time) things occur.
Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory and Austen productions of the eighties and nineties such as Chariots of Fire, Pride and Prejudice and Brideshead Revisited. It even manages to precurse adaptations yet to happen as well as the likes of Downton Abbey some 13 years down the line.
However in a more general way Stiff Upper Lips satirises popular perceptions of certain Edwardian traits expressly sexual repression, xenophobia, and class snobbery.
Rather than anything slapstick the humour is often subtle and dialogue related thanks to a genuinely witty script although there are some real laugh out loud moments of madness as well. It's one of those films with definite rewatch value thanks to this.
The film also boasts a cast worthy of the productions it mocks including Peter Ustinov, Sean Pertwee, Georgina Cates, Frank Finlay, Brian Glover and Samuel West.
Last night was my first viewing of this wonderful pastiche and it won't be the last as i thought it was brilliant.
Network's Blu-ray looks stunning.
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