The Happy Prince

Sometimes interesting, sometimes meandering, this is an uneven and narratively fractured account of the last days of Oscar Wilde.

Any time I see that someone is the writer, director AND star of a movie it always sets off warning bells. Usually it's a little indie nothing, often it's a gay themed movie. It doesn't usually star someone like Rupert Everett. And yet here we are.

I think there's definitely a reason why a) this took ten years to get made and b) stories of Oscar Wilde usually stop at the end of the trial and skip over most of this section of his life. It's fucking depressing. As well as being more than a little self indulgent. And I'd say over half of it probably barely comes under the "inspired by true events" subheading.

Everett spends most of the movie looking like he's pulling a weird face, which I think he is... trying to get that Wilde chin... in addition to varying degrees of make up and appliances to make him look both older and "more like Wilde". I think at the end of the day that Everett just isn't right for the part. Everyone else is excellent, especially Morgan as the ever detestable Bosie and Thomas as Ross, who I'd never actually heard of before.

Also the addition of the French street kids, one of whom is desperate for Oscar to finish the story of the titular prince, the other, his older brother, who Oscar has sex with, feels... forced to say the least. Especially give that the story of The Happy Prince is just over 3400 words and could be read inside of about half an hour. So Oscar must be drip feeding the story to the kid a sentence at a time.

_The Happy Prince_ is as self-indulgent as I imagine Oscar Wilde was, yet not nearly as charming or amusing. This rather dreary biopic of the latter years of the poet's life do him as much justice as the English courts did. Sadly, the master's wit is only present in the quotations used, and not in the performances, script or directing.

Honestly, it pains me to write this because the film is obviously a labour of love for all involved, but though their hearts were in the right place, little else was.