PICCADILLY JIM is one of my favorite Wodehouse books. It's a non-series novel with the concomitant flaws of early Wodehouse. But the story has Wodehouse's most masterly "impostor" plot where a young man is introduced as a guest into a private home masquerading ... as himself. If you want an explanation, see this movie and all will be made clear.The cast is excellent. Sam Rockwell enters the Wodehouse world with surprising aplomb as Jimmy. Tom Wilkinson is superb as his father, an ex-pat American married to a woman (improbably) trying to buy him a title; but he misses baseball so much he sails home pretending to be a butler. Rockwell and Wilkinson have a tremendous rapport. Meanwhile, the real butler (Geoffrey Palmer) is assumed to be Rockwell's father by Francis O'Connor as the love interest. All clear? No? Good! The movie remains strangely loyal to Wodehouse's convoluted story, tinkering with it here and there for clarity. It's played up to the hilt, but none of the actors (even Hugh Bonneville, the worst offender as a German spy never quite goes over the top--though given the setting of the movie and the time the book was written it's never clear whether he's working for the Nazis or the Kaiser in trying to steal a new secret bomb formula, a little thing Wodehouse threw in just for added confusion).The problem most people have with this flick is the problem I feared I might have. And it's a perfectly valid criticism. Read on.While this Wodehouse is thankfully set in the 1930s (actually, PICCADILLY JIM was written a lot earlier, but we'll let that pass) it is a thirties that never existed except in the beautifully deranged minds of the designers. It's an alternative-history thirties, done in steampunk style. These thirties were never as they were (certainly no one seems to feel there's a depression on) but as they should have been were they more like the twenty-first century.For instance, the London nightclub Jimmy (Rockwell) goes to meet Ann (O'Connor) is playing ersatz swing music, far too booming to be real swing, and is sung by a singer with WAY too much decolletage for the period, but it works. They throw in just enough of the real thirties to make you buy the weird hairdos and clothes and far-outrageous Decco sets.The trick is not to take any of it seriously. It's a feast for the eyes. Sit back and enjoy it--at least the story is mostly straight.The worst result in this bastardized mix certain moral attitudes. The best of Wodehouse was free of post-Freudian angst. Even couples seeking engagement were not driven by sexual hankerings. Therefore, it is shocking when sexual activity is implied (which it is early on, but not so much later on). This is a liberty with the text I personally disliked, but is less unseemly with this bizarre 1930s/2000s blend.MAJOR SPOILER: As some reviewers have pointed out, the actual butchery of Wodehouse is a single change in the plot. And it's not a small alteration. Jimmy (Rockwell) was "Piccadilly Jim" who wrote little pieces for the paper. As in Wodehouse, Jimmy is now sacked and someone else is writing the "Piccadilly Jim" column. In the book, Jimmy wrote a bad review of a younger Ann's self-published book of romantic verse (in squishy leather). Any Wodehouse fan can tell you the attitude toward verse published in squishy leather. In the book, Jimmy wrote the review. In the movie, his successor is the real culprit, writing under the "Piccadilly Jim" brand name. But if Jimmy tells Ann who he's not just pretending to be Jimmy but he actually is Jimmy, she is less likely to marry him and more likely to kill him.And that's not the very worst. This is: Whoever wrote the review, Jimmy or his successor, the book and movie handle the situation in diametrically opposite ways. Wodehouse can be awfully, and hilariously, callous in his treatment of children and minor poets. But the movie treats the issue in more of a touchy-feely twenty-first century way that removes its fangs. Shame.Nevertheless, Jimmy's discovery of "his" reviews is very funny. And the movie's treatment of Ann is beautiful. Because of that review, Ann abandoned poetry and started writing crime novels noted for their violence. All written, no doubt, with "Piccadilly Jim" in mind. Though this treatment of Ann is hardly canonical, it's a lovely touch, and I like this neurotic and dangerous, hard-drinking, crime-writing Ann a whole lot better than Wodehouse's heroine of a century ago.Overall, it's a very good adaptation, only occasionally skating around Wodehouse's tightly-wound plot. It hardly presents any sort of real living conditions of the period, but ... frankly, neither did Wodehouse himself. If you can stomach the weird sets and styles, you're in for a lot of laughs. Unlike a lot of Wodehouse adaptations (for instance, I was never sold on Stephen Fry's Jeeves), this one is fast moving and FUNNY. And what is generally overlooked is that, like Wodehouse at his best, it's joyful.

Yeesh! If you're expecting anything up to the standards of the "Jeeves and Wooster" production standards, you're in for a real let down! Tom Wilkinson was great, he always is, so it is too bad that he did not have a bigger part, but otherwise the acting was unremarkable. I've just never been much impressed by Sam Rockwell. Maybe that's just me.Too much of this movie looked as though nobody was paying attention to what they were doing. The bloopers, apparently, were just ignored in post-production. The anachronisms were so glaring that they were a constant distraction. It was supposed to be 1930! The typewriters conspicuously dated from the 1950s up to the 1970s. And what was a Dodge Prowler, a limited production "hot rod" built between 1997 and 2002, doing in this film? I was waiting for someone to pull out a cellphone.If there's NOTHING else on, watch it. I doubt that many will want to watch it again.

If you are a Wodehouse fan looking for a faithful adaption of Piccadilly Jim I should avoid this film at all costs. The director just does not understand where the appeal of Wodehouse lies.He has bastardised the clear historical period which Wodehouse sets out so that all sense of nostalgia is lost. The costume is ghastly, there are no tweed suits, no tails, no period hats, instead a hideous marriage of poorly cut 1980's suits and common 21st century fashions (black shirts and black suits with white ties etc.). Don't get me started on the hairstyles. The sets are cheap and bland reproductions of art-deco, the cars a strange and offensive fusion of modern and vintage. The camera angles and lighting are extremely self indulgent to the extent that houses are made to look like night clubs for so called 'dramatic effect'.If these were the only crimes we might just be able to forgive this film, however the script is frankly insulting to any true Wodehouse fan. All of the beautiful language which is unique to Wodehouse has been scrapped in favour of a simplified, dumbed-down, consumer friendly script with the effect that much of the magic of Wodehouse is lost.There are a few exceptions however. Rupert Simonian gives an accurate and encouraging portrayal of Ogden Ford. Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville and Geoffrey Palmer deserve credit for making a good, although futile effort at bringing this film into repute.If you are a Wodehouse fan you will doubtless be tempted to watch this film and I imagine you will have a very similar reaction to me. If you are not a Wodehouse fan I suggest you avoid this to prevent you from getting a bad impression of him, pick up the book instead.

I have seen this twice, but I had not realised that it was a PG Wodehouse story, which would perhaps have made it bizarre. However, in my ignorance, I loved the clashing of modern music and wicked thievery of modern images into the 1930s. Loved the cast - I had not seen either of the two romantic leads before, but the supporting cast was a sea of faces well-known and well-loved. Perhaps it went on a teensy bit, but I thought it was well done, a thoroughly enjoyable whizz of a movie. It is entertainment you know, not a contender for a Nobel Peace Prize. Wodehouse was always meant to be fun, and this certainly fits the bill. Bouquets to the household staff for their instant sterilisation of the mansion in the opening scenes. Wonderful, wonderful Geoffrey Palmer, Brenda Blethyn and Tom Wilkinson .. indeed a good couple of hours all told.