WildeStephen Fry certainly looks like Oscar Wilde -- the older Wilde, anyway. (In his younger days Mr. Wilde was a dead ringer for my friend Jim who lives in the Bronx. Which is pretty strange because Jim is neither of Irish descent nor is he Protestant.) Anyway, as far as biographies of famous dead people go, Wilde was pretty good. There were some stiff (no pun intended) scenes, especially with the actor playing Wilde's friend, Robert Ross -- one senses a certain discomfort on the actor's part. Also, I thought that the characters of the various male interests of Mr. Wilde were a bit too seedy-looking, though perhaps that is just my prejudice against the fashions of the times, which (it seemed) ran to slicked-down hair and suits in unfortunate patterns of tweed and plaid. Jude Law, who played the ultimate Psycho Lover From Hell, Bosie, was perhaps not quite as exquisitely beautiful as the actual person was supposed (at least in Oscar Wilde's infatuated eyes) to be, and he did his scenes of ranting and raving rather better than his scenes of need and love. The female parts, especially that of Mrs. Wilde and Ada Levenson (sp?) (a female friend of Oscar's), were very well done. Jennifer Ehle managed to be convincing in the part of the deceived yet still-loving wife. Vanessa Redgrave was not as annoying as usual in the part of Oscar's mother, Speranza.There were quite a few scenes of men bouncing about in bed together, which were filmed in such a way as too be quite non-erotic (the camera just sat there, slightly out of focus). This had an unfortunate (to me, anyway) distancing effect, so that the characters' emotions were not conveyed to the audience. Anyone who wondered why men would bother having sex with each other were not going to come away from this film with any more understanding. Still, these scenes were apparently too much for some members of the audience, specifically a middle-aged couple who got up and left after the second (or perhaps third) such scene. I remember thinking: "I guess they didn't know." By A. Harris |