After the exhilirating opening of The Dark Knight this past weekend (seriously, it's every bit as good as Joseph Susanka's review suggests), I'm doubly depressed at the thought of the Brideshead Revisited remake that is opening this coming weekend. One look at the trailer was enough to convince most fans of Waugh's masterpiece that the filmmakers had gotten it woefully wrong.

Now they are discussing the adaptation at more length in the New York Times, and removing all doubt (h/t Ross Douthat):

As much as it is a story about a lost period of English history — a final shining moment before everything changed forever — “Brideshead” is a novel about the inexorable pull of Catholicism. The issues it raises are particularly relevant now, [screenwriter Jeremy] Brock said, though viewers may interpret what they see differently depending on the role of faith in their own lives. . . .

“In that tug between individual freedom and fundamentalist religion, there’s a story that’s apposite for our time,” Mr. Brock said. “In the modern age that’s something we’re all dealing with.”

"Fundamentalist religion"? They did read the book, Waugh's ultimate tribute to the Faith -- right?

An important divergence in tone from Waugh’s novel, Mr. Jarrold said, comes in the closing scene, when Charles — now back at Brideshead during World War II — talks to Lieutenant Hooper, a fellow soldier who has a rough accent and the forthright views of a modern man unimpressed by the aristocracy. How to portray him led to long discussions about the way that Waugh “is sometimes profoundly undemocratic” and disdainful of Hooper and what he represents, Mr. Jerrold said.

In the book Hooper is “described as a traveling salesman with a wet handshake,” he said. “But he’s the future of England, and the hope of the 1945 generation, and we’ve put a positive spin on him.”

Ah. Disregard my last question, then. As Douthat put it, "Catholicism is wicked and fundamentalist, Hooper is the hope of the future - but of course they're being very faithful to the book!"

I think fans of the novel will find it much better represented by the authoritative 1981 miniseries adaptation -- or, frankly, The Dark Knight.