• Genres: Biography, Drama
• Tagline: The story of the first modern man
• Plot Synopsis: The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realisation of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie. After legal action instigated by Bosie’s father, the mad Marquess of Queensberry, Wilde refused to flee the country and was sentenced to two years at hard labour by the courts of an intolerant Victorian society.
• Plot Keywords: Homophobia | Prison | Homosexuality | Hypocrisy | Love | Obsession | Playwright | Poetry | Rights | Scandal | Theater | Aristocracy
• Actors: Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle, Gemma Jones, See more
• Directors: Brian Gilbert

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.