Rosemary for Remembrance

There's a lot to critique about Brideshead Revisited when viewed from the social context of the 21st century, most obviously the suggestion that it is primarily Sebastian's descent into overt homosexuality, rather than the severe alcoholism that is present from his introduction, that destroys his life. There's also Waugh's insistence, in an out-of-canon letter, that Julia must be punished for her life of sin. Quoting Waugh's letter in the link:

Charles has now become a successful painter, largely through the help of a socially established wife. Whether this wife appears in the film or not does not seem to me essential, but there must be an impediment to the marriage of Julia and Charles. Otherwise since Julia’s marriage to Rex has never been ecclesiastically valid, there is no reason why she should not marry Charles and provide a banal Hollywood ending. I regard it as essential that after having led a life of sin Julia should not be immediately rewarded with conventional happiness. She has a great debt to pay and we are left with her paying it.
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But those aren't why I'm calling you today. The first thing that threw me, as a 21st-century reader, out of BR was the insistence that what sounds like a beautiful Arts and Crafts chapel is vulgar and ugly. That, Mr. Waugh, is a bridge too far. I wonder when the revival of Arts and Crafts happened, and whether it was already in motion before 1950. Not that that would have mattered to Mr. Waugh, far from it.