Wood and Vale: "Sparkle's gone"

Wood and Vale's Bridget Galton thinks The Philadelphia Story "dated and sleight as a stage play", but likes Jennifer Ehle in it.

In the Hepburn/Grace Kelly role, Ehle seems to be in a quite different play. She succeeds in imbuing Tracy with humanity and hubris as her inability to tolerate faults in others comes crashing down and her passionate nature is released by a bucketful of champagne and a naked dip with a tabloid hack.

Ehle is too good an actress not to mine the thin material for all its worth, and although her naturalistic performance is out of kilter with the light heartedness of the proceedings, she gives a moving portrait of a woman who finally finds herself.