Rating: 
Summary: Wild About Wilde
Review: Before I saw this movie I really had no idea just how awesome Oscar Wilde was. I knew he was a homosexual, and I knew he was a writer. When I saw the movie the first time I was somewhat shocked by the love scenes; I didn't expect them to emerge quite so quickly or to continue so far into the film. But upon seeing the movie again, I was able to focus more on the deeper themes of the story. As other reviewers have said, the film is perfectly cast: Fry as Wilde, Law as Bosie, Ehle as Constance. I found the Victorian politics very interesting, and the movie was quite educational. The only thing I really didn't like was the fact that they focused more on Wilde's love/sex life than his life as a writer. Overall, though, it was enjoyable, and I am now a huge fan of Oscar. I kissed his tombstone in Paris!
"It is the spectator, and not life, which art really mirrors."
Rating: 
Summary: "I put all my genius into my life. . ."
Review: ". . .I put only my talent into my works."Wilde is a truly moving and beautiful tribute to one of the forgotten geniuses of fin de siecle literature. In a deeply convincing performance, Stephen Fry shows both the glittering sheen of wit and the seldom-seen humanity beneath the Irish genius that was Oscar Wilde. Jude Law, doing his usual excellent job, portrays Bosie as both a petulant and spoiled brat and a young man starved for the affection he could never have as a child. The supporting cast are wonderful, particulary Michael Sheen as Robbie, Vanessa Redgrave as Speranza, and Tom Wilkinson as the Marquess of Queensbury. Ever since learning of him, I have held Mr. Wilde in deep respect, as an artist, a genius, and a person who would not become a hypocrite like those who so easily condemned him. The entire sequence from the trial scene to the release from prison was one of the most moving and cathartic moments I have ever witnessed on film. And in another vein, the movie does not shy away (like previous Wilde bios) from showing Wilde's intimate side. It gives a realistic and human side to a man I only previously beheld in black and white images from a distant century. Wilde is the finest film to come along in years. It is a viewing must for any conoisseur of cinema or literature.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful looking and sounding, and heartbreaking as well
Review: This movie is everything about why I love the courageous, crisp, brainy and brilliant British media. Stephen Fry is a gem who could recite the phone book and turn it into a soliloquy on the cruelty of human history. His voice is marvelous, and he rolls his consonants around in his mouth like Jordan almonds -- all without affectation, somehow. Wilde's many quips and epigrams drop out of his mouth without the slightest artificiality, natural and thoughtless as dew rolling off a leaf. Jude Law's Bosie is terrifyingly unstable, and his beauty serves only to throw his instability into high relief. You can't take your eyes off of him while he's on screen at the same time you want to turn away and skitter under the cabinets to stop watching. The rest of the supporting cast is magnificent (if only the American film industry permitted its great actresses to work past the age of 40, we might boast such luminaries as Vanessa Redgrave and Zoe Wanamaker someday as well as Helen Mirren and Judi Dench!), the directing is flawless, the costumes and set design stunning but never overstated. All of it is used only to support the story, and as beautiful as it all is, it never pulls you out of the story or distracts you, only providing a seamless and textured foundation for the action. I admit, I'm somewhat amused at the reviewers who imagine that this film shouldn't have concentrated so much on Wilde's sexuality. This is the story of him as much his work -- and his work at any rate was quite informed by his sexuality, nebulous at best during a time when anything but rigid adherence to a particularly joyless version of heterosexuality was a sin and a crime. Beautiful as this film is (and delicious as it is to see so many gorgeous young British men running around au naturel), it breaks your heart with the realization that happiness and fulfillment in life, as well as success and self-respect, can be so profoundly influenced by nothing more significant than the year in which one was born. In a hundred years, what will people be saying about the great women, gays and lesbians, and other minorities who lived in our time?
Rating:
Summary: The Wilde life and times...
Review: The first time I saw this movie was on the big screen in a London theatre. I couldn't dream of a more appropriate place to see this wonderfully lavish telling of the true story of Oscar Wilde. Much of the movie is taken directly from Oscar's own confession, "De Profundis". Both Steven Fry (brilliantly known from "Blackadder" and "Jeeves and Wooster") and Jude Law are close to flawless in their performances as Wilde and Bosie. Fry achieves a subtlety of expression rarely seen in film nowadays; he demonstrates the gentle nature and greatness of spirit that most literary scholars would not be aware was the essence of Oscar Wilde. The tragic but utterly human downfall of Wilde may clearly be seen as the direct result of his tempestuous and ultimately fatal relationship with the petulant but beautiful Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde may be an unlikely martyr, but nevertheless remains an inspiration to anyone who dares to be true to himself. I recommend this movie highly to those persons with the open hearts and minds to appreciate this great man.
Rating:
Summary: Both enormously entertaining and amazingly accurate biopic
Review: For the most part, this is one of the most amazingly accurate biopics I have ever seen. The screenwriter obviously wrote it with Richard Ellman's stellar biography in one hand, and except for one small bit, stays astonishingly true to the facts of Wilde's life. The accuracy is one of the two things that makes this film so fascinating. The other is the remarkable performances by the films actors. Stephen Fry is nothing short of remarkable, acting Wilde as a real person, instead of a parody or caricature of Wilde. Jude Law, in one of his first notable screen performances, is appropriately fetching as Alfred Lord Douglas (and I do admire his courage as a heterosexual actor portraying so convincingly a homosexual siren). Tom Wilkinson, who each year seems to distinguish himself more and more as one of the most versatile and talented actors in film, is suitably vicious and tenacious as Lord Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensbury. He strikes perfectly the pose of evangelical fervor and philistinism that one detects in reading of the real Marquess. Jennifer Ehle is excellent in the thankless role of Wilde's wife. The movie depicts quite accurately Wilde's intention in prison to return to his wife after leaving prison, an intention that was frustrated by her death before his release. His relationship with Robbie Ross, who was in real life probably Wilde's most faithful and dedicated friend, is shown in moving detail. The lone complaint I have with the film is the omission of the past couple of years of Wilde's life. Although he was reunited with Alfred Lord Douglas briefly upon his release from prison, their attempted reconciliation was largely a failure, and they eventually went their own ways, with Lord Douglas completely turning his back on Wilde during his time of greatest need. The end of Wilde's life was heartbreakingly tragic, with Wilde often employing his considerable conversational skills in entertaining strangers for the cost of a few drinks. The contrast between the Oscar Wilde who had multiple plays running simultaneously in London in the 1890s and the Wilde who died nearly friendless and penniless in France in 1900 is as poignant as any in literary history. In 1895, he is the toast of London; in 1900, a pariah. But perhaps this alternative version of Wilde's life would have been too bleak. Even without the fuller ending, this is a very sad and tragic film. And WILDE proves that you can have a biopic that can, at the same time, maintain an exceedingly high degree of historical advocacy while remaining dramatically engrossing.
Rating:
Summary: "I put all my genius into my life. . ."
Review: ". . .I put only my talent into my works." Wilde is a truly moving and beautiful tribute to one of the forgotten geniuses of fin de siecle literature. In a deeply convincing performance, Stephen Fry shows both the glittering sheen of wit and the seldom-seen humanity beneath the Irish genius that was Oscar Wilde. Jude Law, doing his usual excellent job, portrays Bosie as both a petulant and spoiled brat and a young man starved for the affection he could never have as a child. The supporting cast are wonderful, particulary Michael Sheen as Robbie, Vanessa Redgrave as Speranza, and Tom Wilkinson as the Marquess of Queensbury. Ever since learning of him, I have held Mr. Wilde in deep respect, as an artist, a genius, and a person who would not become a hypocrite like those who so easily condemned him. The entire sequence from the trial scene to the release from prison was one of the most moving and cathartic moments I have ever witnessed on film. And in another vein, the movie does not shy away (like previous Wilde bios) from showing Wilde's intimate side. It gives a realistic and human side to a man I only previously beheld in black and white images from a distant century. Wilde is the finest film to come along in years. It is a viewing must for any conoisseur of cinema or literature.
Rating:
Summary: The Portrait of Oscar Wilde--one of wit and compassion
Review: If anything, the value of true love and compassion, unfettered by social interdictions, and how the Victorian attitudes made only a certain kind of love a crime, is the driving force behind Wilde. The bio-movie of legendary playwright and wit Oscar Wilde begins with his trip to Leadville, Colorado in 1882, where a seam in a silver mine has been named in his honour. Down the mine, he tells the story of The King's Dream, about how the king has dreams revealing how lesser class people have toiled and suffered so that nobles can wear finery and wield sceptres and ornaments of silver and gold. Wilde seems to have it, talent, wit, a nice wife, two children. It's at the reception for his play, Lady Windermere's Fan, that we see the beginning of the end. There, Wilde is introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed "Bosie", a handsome blond who finds conventional morality stifling, such as his enjoyment of other men, but whose selfishly immature, egotistic nature comes out in an ugly way later in the movie. "Bosie" admires Wilde. "You use wit like a knife, cut through all those starched shirt fronts. You draw blood. It's magnificent," he tells him. Bosie introduces Wilde to secret parlors where there are others who have homosexual leanings, but he seems proud to display himself as "Wilde's boy", wanting the whole world to know, whereas Wilde is a bit more on the cautious and side. Yet he counsels Bosie, who is then in a petulant pique that Wilde has to work on his play instead of having fun, that "pleasure have to be earned and paid for." And yet he is patient and forgiving towards the lad. The villain of this piece is Bosie's brutish father, John Sholto Douglas, better known as the 9th marquis of Queensbury, he who invented the boxing rules such as wearing gloves, the ten second count, and rounds. He strongly disapproves of Bosie's friendship with Wilde and sets about verbally intimidating both. The attitudes of the stuffed shirts in Victorian England can be found in a lady's comment on censorship: "There must be censorship. All people would say what they meant, and then where would we be?" Wilde too gives a view of the stifled times when he says that if his son grew up, "he must do as his nature dictates, as I should have done." But couldn't, one should add. At various parts of the movie, Wilde's story of "The Selfish Giant" is narrated to match the scene or Wilde's feelings. All throughout, Wilde's wit and observations on human nature are heard. Examples: "Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth." This in turn leads to a conversation about The Picture Of Dorian Gray, a novel about "the masks we wear as faces, the faces we wear as masks" that lost the Wildes their respectability for its unveiling the hypocritical veneer of Victorian gentility. But the most important is this: "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants. The other is getting." Those who know of Wilde's life knows how it'll end, but there are some sobering narrated observations that reflect the suffering he underwent: "Life cheats us with shadows. We ask it for pleasure, it gives it to us with bitterness and disappointment in its train." Or the way people destroy the thing they love most: Some do it with a bitter look
some with a flattering word
the coward with a kiss
The brave man with a sword
some kill their love when they are young
and some when they are old
some strangle with the hands of lust
some with the hands of gold
the kindest use a knife
because the dead so soon grow cold Stephen Fry, best known as Jeeves in the Jeeves and Wooster series does a top-notch job in portraying the playwright and wit. His Wilde is suave, charming, loving and understanding to his wife, children, and Bosie, and in the end, unwilling to perjure himself and his beliefs despite its meaning his fall from grace. Jude Law does good as Bosie, but Jennifer Ehle also deserves credit as the soft-spoken but loyal and beautiful Constance Wilde.
Rating:
Summary: The importance of being Wilde
Review: I totally enjoyed this film and feel it is relivant information to better understand the impact Oscar Wilde had on the world. The largest factor was that Oscar was a well known and well liked member of the community prior to the scandal of the love that dare not speak its name. Even those who turned on him had a realization about the issue and it helped to awaken a new understanding. Oscar Wilde was in fact a bright and charming man that impressed and inspired. I feel this film shows him for who and what he was. It's a tribute for his life to be made into a modern play and this film was excellant.
Rating:
Summary: DVD encoding will keep me from buying this product.
Review: I do NOT have a region-free DVD player, but on ethical grounds I will not buy any product which uses additional encoding to enforce region limits. I loved this film in the theatre, and I will not be able to buy it from Amazon.com on DVD to enjoy at home. So, I'll have to buy a pirate copy just for spite.
Rating:
Summary: Wilde & Wonderful
Review: With a script taken from Richard Ellman's epic biography of Wilde (which was written with assistance from Merlin Holland, one of Wilde's grandsons), they couldn't go wrong. Brilliant casting decisions. Stephen Fry's long-time identification with Wilde and massive intillect gave him the ability to overcome being known only as a comedic actor (in *Jeeves & Wooster*, *Blackadder*, etc.) with a tour-de-force performance as Wilde. The wit is there, but so is the multi-faceted Wilde who loved his wife, adored his children, and fell prey to tragedy. Jennifer Ehle's Constance is brilliant, compassionate, and beautiful. Jude Law as Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas is nothing short of exquisite. The supporting cast (Zoë Wannamaker, Vanessa Redgrave, et al) round out the storytelling to a level worthy of the Oscar (pun vaguely intended). The commentary and featurettes are quite well done -- of interest to fans and help to scholars. Writing my thesis on the influence of Wilde, PG Wodedhouse, and Evelyn Waugh on Fry's writing style (I encourage you to read Stephen Fry's novels), I can say for certain that the commentaries will find their way into the Citations section of my work.
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