Bright Young Things (film)
Bright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People—young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians—as well as society in general, in the interwar era.
Original poster
Vile Bodies is the second novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1930. It satirises the bright young things, the rich young people partying in London after World War I, and the press which fed on their doings.
The original title Bright Young Things, which Waugh changed because he thought the phrase had become too clichéd, was used in Stephen Fry's 2003 film adaptation. The eventual title appears in a comment made by the novel's narrator in reference to the characters' party-driven lifestyle: "All that succession and repetition of massed humanity... Those vile bodies...".
The book was dedicated to B. G. and D. G., Waugh's friends Bryan Guinness and his wife Diana.
Jacket of the first UK edition of Vile Bodies