What’s a man to do when the ghost of his jealous and determined ex-wife suddenly reappears, hellbent on ruining his new marriage?
Blithe Spirit is director Edward Hall’s film reimagining of Noël Coward’s 1941 comic play. This darkly humorous movie stars Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as crime novelist Charles Condomine, who has been happily married to his second wife Ruth (Isla Fisher, Confessions of a Shopaholic) for five years now. Charles finds himself struggling with writer’s block as he works against the looming deadline for his first screenplay when one thing leads to another, and he ends up turning to a psychic medium (who has recently been exposed as a fraud), Madame Arcati (Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love).
Things get a bit hairy, though, when Madame Arcati’s séance results in the summoning of Charles’ late wife Elvira (Leslie Mann, This Is 40), who ends up on a quest to drag him back to the grave with her so that they can spend the rest of eternity together.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed new stills from the film, which include the aforementioned botched séance, Madame Arcati herself, Charles looking like he’s (literally) seen a ghost as his ex-wife stands beside him, and a tender moment between Charles and Ruth.
When discussing the comedic tone of the film, which is set in England in the 1930s, Stevens told Entertainment Weekly one of the reasons he was drawn to the part was the modern twist that was put on this adaption. “The idea in some people’s minds [is that] history and humor are somehow mutually exclusive, which is weird to me.”
Watch the trailer below!
Pushed back from its original May release date due to COVID-19, Blithe Spirit is due to arrive in theaters in the UK on September 4. North American rights to the movie were recently acquired by IFC Films, and the exact date of release has not yet been confirmed, but it appears that it will also be in the fall.
