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In between the power outages last night, I watched Wilde. Given the cast, I thought it would be a brilliant biopic on Oscar Wilde. And...it's not. Jude Law is a perfect Bosie--he seems to have made a career out of playing the object of desire for repressed gay men. But Stephen Fry (who I adore) is a little too on-the-nose for Wilde.
Once he has the hair and the costume, he's a dead ringer for Wilde. And I know he personally loves Wilde. He's made himself into a sort of modern-day Oscar Wilde, famous as a personality and for a variety of different types of writing, acting, and presenting. But here's the main problem with this movie. Everyone involved adored Oscar Wilde. All of them are terribly sympathetic to the tragedy of his later life. And they all believed, as the producer says in a featurette, that Oscar Wilde was a genuinely nice man.
And I...don't believe that. ( More on Wilde )
I doubt there'll be another biopic of Wilde with as much rigorous attention to detail (I took a course on Oscar Wilde in college and have read the biography that inspired the movie, so can see that they did their research liek woah) or with as perfect a cast in the near future, but with all it had going for it, Wilde still fell pretty short for me.
Of note, this movie has Orlando Bloom's very first on-screen appearance! It's about five seconds long and he's a rentboy. Now that's what I call typecasting.
Once he has the hair and the costume, he's a dead ringer for Wilde. And I know he personally loves Wilde. He's made himself into a sort of modern-day Oscar Wilde, famous as a personality and for a variety of different types of writing, acting, and presenting. But here's the main problem with this movie. Everyone involved adored Oscar Wilde. All of them are terribly sympathetic to the tragedy of his later life. And they all believed, as the producer says in a featurette, that Oscar Wilde was a genuinely nice man.
And I...don't believe that. ( More on Wilde )
I doubt there'll be another biopic of Wilde with as much rigorous attention to detail (I took a course on Oscar Wilde in college and have read the biography that inspired the movie, so can see that they did their research liek woah) or with as perfect a cast in the near future, but with all it had going for it, Wilde still fell pretty short for me.
Of note, this movie has Orlando Bloom's very first on-screen appearance! It's about five seconds long and he's a rentboy. Now that's what I call typecasting.