Only in Wilde to you find characters called things like Gertrude. But anyway, this isn't the first and probably not the last adaptation of Wilde for the big screen, and it is a very fine one. They don't manage to be as grand as in the 1940s version, which is a little to the story's detriment, but they do manage to, in the common parlance, crush much of the dialogue. And no-one does it better than Jane Bond himself, or rather Rupert Everett, in the role of Arthur. He gets all the wittiest lines, but also, in the last act, finds the right tone to express feeling both refined and universal, when discussing love, naturally.
For the ladies, it is the visitor from abroad, Mrs Cheveley (Julianne Moore) who matches Everett's Arthur for verbal swordplay and smiles sweetly sardonic, or however you prefer to describe polite duplicity. I also liked John Wood as Arthur's father, Lord Caversham, and the now much more famous Cate Blanchett as the aforementioned Gertrude. The weakest links are Jeremy Northam's threatened idealist, Sir Robert (his speech to the House is overcooked), and much too contemporary, Minnie Driver as Miss Mabel.
Everett was also in 2002's The Importance of Being Earnest, again for director Oliver Parker, playing off Colin Firth and also Frances O'Connor and Reese Witherspoon. That one boasted Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson. Both films have much the same feeling, virtually the same romantic trouble, so if you've seen one you'll enjoy the other. I'd say that this one, if pressed, is a degree or two higher in stature, but not by much. I'm not entirely sure a director like Parker was an apt choice for stories set amongst the nobs, but too late to change now. Both are very sumptuous, very elegant offerings, and for costume and setting they are pure visual delight. We appreciate these things the more as filmmaking becomes ever more facile, redundant, and cheaply politicised.
And while I've got you here, on a wholly unrelated note, it's weird the way some submissions to imdb go up on site in the blink and others are refused, is it not? So, just so you know, I gave a 7 to 2013 comedy Enough Said, which I thought realistic but also depressingly flat, for all that it was quite funny. Enough said about that. And the Billy Crystal, Debra Winger romcom, Forget Paris (1995), that's an 8. Why should saying that be controversial, imdb?
For the ladies, it is the visitor from abroad, Mrs Cheveley (Julianne Moore) who matches Everett's Arthur for verbal swordplay and smiles sweetly sardonic, or however you prefer to describe polite duplicity. I also liked John Wood as Arthur's father, Lord Caversham, and the now much more famous Cate Blanchett as the aforementioned Gertrude. The weakest links are Jeremy Northam's threatened idealist, Sir Robert (his speech to the House is overcooked), and much too contemporary, Minnie Driver as Miss Mabel.
Everett was also in 2002's The Importance of Being Earnest, again for director Oliver Parker, playing off Colin Firth and also Frances O'Connor and Reese Witherspoon. That one boasted Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson. Both films have much the same feeling, virtually the same romantic trouble, so if you've seen one you'll enjoy the other. I'd say that this one, if pressed, is a degree or two higher in stature, but not by much. I'm not entirely sure a director like Parker was an apt choice for stories set amongst the nobs, but too late to change now. Both are very sumptuous, very elegant offerings, and for costume and setting they are pure visual delight. We appreciate these things the more as filmmaking becomes ever more facile, redundant, and cheaply politicised.
And while I've got you here, on a wholly unrelated note, it's weird the way some submissions to imdb go up on site in the blink and others are refused, is it not? So, just so you know, I gave a 7 to 2013 comedy Enough Said, which I thought realistic but also depressingly flat, for all that it was quite funny. Enough said about that. And the Billy Crystal, Debra Winger romcom, Forget Paris (1995), that's an 8. Why should saying that be controversial, imdb?