Word: priggishly
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...wedding and goes downhill from there. Its sympathies are plain: Diana is the down-to-earth outsider forced to endure a stuffy new life-style (when she pops into the palace kitchen for orange juice, the staff is horrified). Charles is merely a wuss; the real heavies are his priggish parents, forever sniffing about royal propriety. Despite the oversimplification, this TV movie is surprisingly likable, thanks mainly to Roger Rees and Catherine Oxenberg, who portray the couple with more verve and warmth than they perhaps deserve...
Twelfth Night The most imaginative response to the debate over the National Endowment for the Arts was this La Jolla (Calif.) Playhouse staging, which cunningly conceived the priggish functionary Malvolio as a precursor of Senator Jesse Helms. Far from merely polemic, the production was visually the most ravishing at any U.S. theater all year...
...stand-outs in the rest of the cast include Jeremy Bollinger, who ably captures the self-officiating nature of Fowler, a priggish "Twenty Two" club member. David McConaughy, as Delahay, also does a convincing job with his role of a self-centered snob. His snide comments and vicious glances could make even William F. Buckley cower in his chair. Mark Kessler inspires a chuckle for his performance as the lisping literary critic. The problem with most of the other actors is that they don't play up the viciousness of their roles--they fade into the background because they...
Hanks has devised a snooty accent (he sounds as if he were born with a silver potato in his mouth) and a way of likably parodying almost Ayn Randian selfishness. Candy again shows that he is a resourceful character comedian. Wilson neatly captures the priggish whine of middle-class idealism and its potential for redemption through experience and common sense. Each reflects the controlling intelligence of the film's writers and director, who want to celebrate the antic resourcefulness of American individualism while satirizing the gaseous platitudes that are too often used to motivate and justify it and sometimes corrupt...
...only question is whether he will discover that she has had a recent flirtation too. Lonsdale's polite palaver provides an opportunity for the display of style by Lynn Redgrave and Jeremy Brett as the urbanely warring couple, George Rose and Brenda Forbes as a tippling reverend and his priggish wife and, above all, Colbert, with her breezy manner and chorus-girl legs, and Harrison, with his merry twinkle and courtly roguery. Escapist the experience undeniably is, but Aren't We All? could not bear the weight of added incident, let alone redeeming social importance. Either would amount to gilding...