Wilde **** (1997, Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Tom Wilkinson) – Classic Movie Review 1586

Director Brian Gilbert’s 1997 biopic is another attempt to tell the Oscar Wilde story, but with the candour available to 90s film-makers, unlike the 60s makers of The Trials of Oscar Wilde (with Peter Finch) and Oscar Wilde (with Robert Morley). Perfectly cast in an extraordinarily handsome-looking production, the magnificent 40-year-old Stephen Fry gives a turn greater even than either Finch or Morley’s fine performances. Fry is so right for the role, and raises his game astonishingly for it.

Based on the definitive biography by Richard Ellmann, Julian Mitchell’s screenplay carefully delineates Wilde’s marriage to Constance (Jennifer Ehle), his homosexual love affairs, his friendship with loyal Robbie Ross (Michael Sheen) his obsession with Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas (Jude Law), his battle with Douglas’s father Lord Queensberry (Tom Wilkinson), his trials, hard-labour imprisonment, illness and finally exile in France.

It’s by far and away the best thing Fry has ever done. A quality British cast supports him loyally, but hardly anyone gets much of a look-in in Wilde’s story, other than Sheen, Law and Wilkinson, all of whom deliver magnificently too, with the latter two giving brio displays of cruelty.

Mitchell’s screenplay encapsulates all the main and best moments in a believable, fast-moving whole. It’s right to be quite wilde about it, since it’s easy to say there’s a pressing reason for another version of this story as the shocking story of a prejudiced society’s treatment of one of its great men should be certainly re-told for every new generation. And thanks to all the great work, and especially Fry, it’s mighty impressive.

Future star Orlando Bloom (aged 20) appears as a rent boy in his film debut.

Vanessa Redgrave (as Lady Speranza Wilde), Gemma Jones (Lady Queensberry), Judy Parfitt, Zoë Wanamaker, Peter Barkworth, Robert Lang, Philip Locke, Avril Elgar, Ioan Gruffudd, Philip Locke and David Westhead also star.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1586

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