STEPHEN Fry's labour of love, this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, details the escapades of a few rich folk who went to a heck of a lot of parties during the wars.

An attractive, enjoyable film (pictured below), it's impossible for an audience, however, to disregard its empty-headed view of life.

Adam (Stephen Campbell Moore) is a struggling writer and member of a party set, who needs money to marry Nina (Emily Mortimer).

To cast, Fry must have got straight on the dog and bone to "Luvvies 'R' Us", to populate the film with actors who are called things like Fennela Woolgar, and a grand roll call of posh types, including Sir John Mills.

They pose, they preen and the camera swoops and swings, taking us first into a party called Inferno, all red lights and atmosphere, and then dragging us along on their jolly japes all over London, including Number 10.

Fantastic performances pop up as often as a hack's camera, with everyone absolutely doing their bit, but it still left me feeling a little queer (as they'd no doubt express it).

The bottom line is it's just very, very hard to feel sorry for such a bunch of privileged party-animals.

Fry admires these folk, their unabashed revelling and regret, but their poverty rings hollow - real deprivation between the wars looked absolutely nothing like this.

Even the extent of their wildness seems overblown - they should check out a Gazette party. The drugs issue is brushed aside, there's no sex, and the final moment of hangover/realisation seems overdramatic.

The film both despises tabloidism and embraces it, and the only people who dare to voice criticism are the working classes - the customs operative and the taxi driver.

It's left to an honourable member of the gutter press to precisely define the era and, unfortunately, the film -"Its glamour is an illusion".