From the Manor Shorn: A Trim 'Brideshead Revisited'

Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw as a middle-class collegian and the aristocratic siblings he's drawn to in "Brideshead Revisited." (By Nicola Dove -- Miramax Films)

Oh, it's still recognizable. Sometimes a little too much so, as anyone who's seen the earlier version will notice. Stray bits of dialogue echo, as does the eerily familiar musical score. The iconic Castle Howard estate once again stands in for Brideshead, the ancestral home of Sebastian's family. Even Goode's Charles looks and sounds a lot like the young Jeremy Irons, whose performance in the TV series made him famous.

Purists, however, may be most alarmed to see how the love triangle has mutated, overshadowing the book's themes of God and redemption. While still there, those ideas have become nuance, rather than an integral part of the powerful and disturbing story. Timelines get compressed, with Julia appearing sooner, and more prominently, in the story.

But so what? Since when did it become illegal for literary adaptations to tweak their source material? Director Julian Jarrold ("Becoming Jane") and screenwriters Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock sought -- and received -- permission from Waugh's heirs to make changes they felt necessary to telling the story in a condensed form.

The problem isn't that this "Brideshead" doesn't uphold the integrity of the book. For the most part, it does, in the way that a postcard from the beach, or a souvenir T-shirt, upholds the integrity of your summer vacation. It evokes, rather than misrepresents.

For those who have nothing to compare it with, the movie will also hold one enduring fascination, as an example of what might be called manor house porn. Let's face it. We Americans are still widely infected with the same class envy that holds Charles in its thrall.

We do love to watch the nobles carry on, don't we? Especially when they've got British accents, great clothes, and they're more screwed up than we are.

Brideshead Revisited (135 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for some sexual content.