It usually works well when British actors play Americans. In fact, they often do US English so well that no one would guess they were Brits if they didn't already know.
This film is a case in point, with one important exception. The reverse is almost never true. I've never heard an American actor deliver even a passable British accent, with the possible exception of Meryl Streep.
The Americans usually overplay the accent, making it immediately recognizable as fake. That's exactly what Jude Law did with the Southern accent. It almost ruined both an otherwise exuberant performance and the film as a whole.
Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman both did a flawless job. But to be fair, they didn't have the added challenge of duplicating a regional American accent. Still, the prominence of Law's overdone inflection was grating and made an otherwise great film difficult to watch.
Maybe some day, an American will manage a believable British accent and some Brit will do an acceptable Southern US one. But it's not to be found here.
This film is a case in point, with one important exception. The reverse is almost never true. I've never heard an American actor deliver even a passable British accent, with the possible exception of Meryl Streep.
The Americans usually overplay the accent, making it immediately recognizable as fake. That's exactly what Jude Law did with the Southern accent. It almost ruined both an otherwise exuberant performance and the film as a whole.
Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman both did a flawless job. But to be fair, they didn't have the added challenge of duplicating a regional American accent. Still, the prominence of Law's overdone inflection was grating and made an otherwise great film difficult to watch.
Maybe some day, an American will manage a believable British accent and some Brit will do an acceptable Southern US one. But it's not to be found here.