Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Let me just state for the record right off, I have no problem with gay persons and actually consider myself an admirer of Oscar Wilde if not a huge fan. I would probably be a huge fan if I read a little more of his stuff, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. This movie did nothing to inspire me to read The Importance of Being Ernest. It made Oscar Wilde into a small, petty, foolish individual instead of the larger than life flamboyant individual I have always believed him to be.

The movie Wilde purports to tell the story of Oscar Wilde’s adult life. Wilde routinely said he was trying to experiment with all the vices to see which ones he liked best (or something like that, remember, I’m an admirer, not a huge fan.) The only vice we see Oscar indulge in in the course of this movie is sex. Lots of sex. I think I counted 4 homosexual sex scenes. Now, how often in any movie do you see 4 sex scenes of any kind (provided the movie isn’t a porno)? And I don’t mean a-kiss-and-we-know-where-this-is-headed sex scenes, I’m talking grunting and sweating sex scenes.

Pray tell, where did the screen time for all these long sex scenes come from? Well, by severely abbreviating the rest of Wilde’s life. How abbreviated?

Scene one: someplace in the States. Wilde on a lecture tour.

Scene two: Wilde in England talking to a young woman about aforementioned tour and telling another woman that he thinks he might marry previous young woman.

Scene three: Wilde reading and previous young woman comes in to tell him that they are pregnant.

Scene four: Young woman (whose name, by the way, is Constance. Constance Wilde, doesn’t that sound like a porn name?) pushing a baby carriage.

Three or four years condensed into 15 minutes all so we can get to the "good stuff." In the next 45 minutes of the movie Wilde falls in love 3 times and we get to see the juicy bits. This part of the movie inspired my husband to dub it "Gays Of Our Lives." It really was nothing more than a soap operatic chronicling of 3 of Wilde’s loves. Constance gets shuffled off to the side along with his sons, there are 2 now. Wilde ends up at about the 60 minute point with Bosie played by Jude Law. Bosie is a spoiled upper crust twit with a cruel, homophobic father. And it is for the love of Bosie that Wilde ends up in jail where he first decides that he won’t give in and will continue to love Boise; then he decides that he really loves his wife (you know, the chick who stood by him through all this and had his kids.)

I don’t know if I can fully express how disappointed I was with this movie. I love Steven Fry I can’t tell you how happy I was when the tape shut off and there was Steven Fry in Black Adder) and I have nothing against Jude Law. Oscar Wilde was a witty and intelligent man who bucked Victorian society. It should have been a great movie, but it wasn’t. The story seemed to be taken from history, but it wasn’t shaped well enough to be interesting or educational. The directing was atrocious. I felt like I was being dragged though Wilde’s life by an untamed horse, except for the long, looong, looooong, sex scenes which I started fast forwarding through after the second one.

And it’s a shame really. The acting was wonderful. Stephen Fry was a wonderful, tortured man in love. Jude Law was fantastic as a spoiled upper class jerk who demanded that Wilde focus solely on him despite having to write and having a family. Tom Wilkinson was terrifying, yet stupid as Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury. And Michael Sheen as Wilde’s first male love interest and continuing friend was so good I may have to search him out in other roles and I won’t even hold the fact that his girlfriend is Kate Beckinsale against him. The cinematography was stunning as well. There is a scene early on of Wilde walking down a road in a light colored suit and he ends up going right through the middle of a crowd of black wearing priests. Yes, it’s been done before, but that shot revealed more of Wilde’s character than the entire rest of the movie.

The only reason I can see for wanting to watch this film is to see Jude Law’s naughty bits. You get to see darn near everything. Personally, I would rather have seen a better movie.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age