Oscar Wilde

The acting in this film was superb. As had many viewers--I suspect-- I had only seen Stephen Fry in the Blackadder and Wodehouse series. How delightful to find another actor intelligent and flexible enough to range from Melchett to Oscar Wilde! One cannot help but watch his face very carefully, waiting to see the mask slip. He seems strangely delicate in his huge, crushing frame...A nice follow-up movie to Velvet Goldmine, especially once you know that some of the dialogue from the latter was lifted from the works of Oscar Wilde.

I've seen Oscar Wilde portrayed on film before. I remember Robert Morley and also Peter Finch. They both provided inklings into the heart and mind of of one of the literary giants of the 19th Century. But one aspect of the tragedy, because, let's face it, it is a tragedy. His relationship with Alfred Douglas that in a very direct way, will mark his destiny. It was so difficult to believe that Peter Finch's Wilde will go to war for someone like John Frazer's Bosie. Good looking yes but devoid of the most important element, if you are going to believe in the power that Bosie had over Wilde. Finch and Frazer have the sexual chemistry of two slices of white bread but here, in this 1997 Wilde with Stephen Fry in the title role the mystery is revealed, Jude Law makes the whole thing totally believable. The desire he inspires we see in Oscar Wilde's eyes. Stephen Fry is another Humbert Humbert to Jude Law's Lolita. Amazing when the most incomprehensible action becomes totally understandable in the face of an actor. That alone, makes this Wilde my favorite.

Wilde is a film about a man's passions destroying his life. Oscar Wilde was a very interesting man and discovered his dormant homosexuality late in life. The film was very tragic in a lot of ways. The love story between Wilde and Douglas was venomous and sweet. The performances by Jude Law and Stephen Fry were top notch. The direction was a little sluggish I thought and the film could have been better paced. The production design was great though and I loved listening to Wilde's sarcasm of the British class system. If you are a fan of Oscar Wilde, you will probably like this film more than the average movie fan.

The mid-life years of (now genteel) decadent behavior by one of late Victorian England's celebrities, the Irish-born novelist-poet-playwright Oscar Wills Wilde (1854–1900). Director Brian Gilbert doesn't bandy about giving us the childhood torments of a literary genius; instead, he and screenwriter Julian Mitchell delve right into the more prominent chapters of Wilde's life, his marriage to a woman--producing two children--before realizing his homosexual desires, leading to some promiscuous indiscretions before finding love with churlish, childish poet Lord Alfred Douglas. Stephen Fry gives a masterful performance as Wilde, and the portrait allows for many shadings (this isn't a plea for the misunderstood gay artist, as Wilde himself is shown to be occasionally fickle, lusting, and selfish). Jude Law is equally good as ornery, demanding lover 'Bosie', whose tyrannical father brought about a court-case and two-year jail term for Wilde (covered previously in 1960's "The Man with the Green Carnation"), contributing to his early demise. A provoking, insightful, eloquent film--not at all stuffy or coy--which is due in large part to Gilbert's dexterous way with his actors and a keen sense of pacing and audience-involvement. *** from ****

This film was one of the best to appear in the late 90s, and is a sensitive, involving, honest and moving biography of one of the greatest writers of the Victorian era, the infamous Oscar Wilde.

More realistic and better played than previous studies of the writer (Robert Morley and Peter Finch both played Wilde in the 1950s), this film benefits greatly from a cracking performance by Stephen Fry in the lead. Not even regarded as an actor, more of a comedian, prior to this, Fry (himself gay, and something of an intellectual) puts across all the nuances and contradictions of the subject perfectly.

This Wilde is torn between what is accepted love (his wife, and children), and the 'love that dare not speak its name' (primarily his destructive relationship with the needy, selfish and petulant Lord Alfred Douglas, played here by Jude Law in the role which brought him to world attention). We see his charm and conviction when creating his plays or amusing friends, we also see his weaker side and why he was the cause of his own eventual arrest and imprisonment, we see how prison changed him and - as he wrote himself in De Profundis - broke his spirit and his health.

Watch out for other, now big, names in the cast - Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Sheen, Orlando Bloom - alongside the established players such as Vanessa Redgrave (Oscar's mother, Sperenza), Jennifer Ehle (Lady Constance Wilde), Tom Wilkinson (Marquess of Queensbury, Bosie's father), Gemma Jones (Bosie's mother), and Judy Parfitt.

A fitting musical score, a smattering of Wilde's epigrams, and a large chunk of his children's story 'The Selfish Giant' (driving and commenting on the action at key points) leave this film close to perfection when detailing the story of the misunderstanding of another age, not too far back from our own.