Easy Virtue is a bright and breezy adaptation of the Noel Coward play brought to the screen by writer and director Stephan Elliott.

Essentially it's a tug of love black comedy, the object of the tussle being Mummy's boy John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) who brings his dashing American girlfriend Larita Huntington (Jessica Biel) to the family home for a party.

His mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) is so pleased to see the apple of her eye but not quite so pleased with the lovely Larita who steals the limelight from the word go - she has great style, she's a successful racing driver, she wears great outfits, and when Larita and John announce that they're only staying a few days, her prickles are well and truly out and the lovebirds are banished to a cold room near the attic whilst the matriarch plots her move like a cold Queen at chess to get rid of this newcomer once and for all. As far as she is concerned, no young lady can be good enough for her son.

Her two daughters Hilda and Marion very much tow the line and support their mother. It's only Mr Whittaker (Colin Firth) and the servants led by the excellent Kris Marshall as cynical butler Furber who side with the beautiful American.

Larita is determined to give as good as she gets and tries to get on with everyone if she can, but she begins to see she is fighting a losing battle when she unfortunately sits on the family's tiny pet dog in a delightful bit of farce which will ultimately prove to be her undoing.

Easy Virtue is great fun. Plays that are adapted for film can often fail to break a storyline out of the confines originally conceived for theatre space but Stephan Elliott has done particularly well.

It's almost "Meet the Parents" Noel Coward-style but none the worse for that. You see how a young man cannot see that he is getting closer to losing his betrothed through not listening to her desires to get away to London.

The performances are sharp, the period setting used to convincing effect, there is, of course, some deliciously dark humour most of it originating out of the part of the butler Furber, played well by Kris Marshall echoing previous roles where servants have shown themselves to be altogether wiser and cynical than their employers (one thinks of the roles played by Denholm Elliott and Dirk Bogarde in butler roles), Colin Firth is also good as the father and Kristin Scott Thomas does well in the thankless role of the cold-hearted Mrs Whittaker. Overall this is a very creditable effort.