Wilde . Austin Chronicle . 06-22-98

Wilde

DIRECTED BY: Brian Gilbert

REVIEWED: 06-22-98

This film portrait of Oscar Wilde, which is based on Richard Ellman's biography of the artist, is a solid, engaging presentation of the man and his times. The film focuses on Wilde's rise to fame as a great wit, writer, and dandy, as well as his subsequent slide into notoriety as England's most famously abhorred and persecuted homosexual. As written by Julian Mitchell (Another Country) and directed by Brian Gilbert (Tom and Viv), Wilde is a sensitively told but fairly straightforward account of the events. It's Stephen Fry's performance as Wilde that gives the film its flourish. It's a role Fry seems to have been destined to play: The physical resemblance is quite remarkable and the fullness Fry lends to the character seems to derive from some secret wellspring of knowledge. Wilde peeks behind the headlines to show us the man who was a devoted father and husband, a man whose gradual acceptance of his homosexuality was to enormously complicate his relationship with these loved ones. And though the movie does not shirk the physical aspects of Wilde's lovemaking, it makes it clear that Wilde's homosexuality was based more on a platonic ideal of beauty and mentoring relationships than on mortal gratifications of genitalia. Wilde certainly is part of the current flurry of renewed biographical interest in the artist's life, yet the film also provides glimpses of Wilde's life that probe beyond the familiar. Also on display here is the hypocrisy of Victorian England, whose subjects watched the whole shabby affair with attentively averted eyes. Wilde examines the nature of love, its obsessiveness, self-abnegation, generosity, blindness, and transcendence. Also detailed is how Wilde's trial for gross indecency was the result of his own brazen libel suit against his beloved's father, the Marquess of Queensbury. It was only after Wilde lost the libel case that the Marquess (who was known for his contributions to the sports of boxing and horse racing) was able to file the suit that caused Wilde to be sentenced to two years hard labor for the crime of sodomy, a physical and emotional assault from which he never quite fully recovered. As the selfish, immature Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed "Bosie," Law is believably arched and seductive. Also notable is the compassionate love Wilde's beautiful wife Constance (Ehle) subtly expresses for her husband. But what's most memorable about Wilde is Fry's near-perfect encapsulation of the artist. It's a performance equal to the legend it portrays.

--Marjorie Baumgarten

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