Thanks for the memories!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Rupert Everett was born for this sort of role, and all the other stars do well, though Minnie Driver is Short-changed, with little plot device or wit to work with. The feel, the costumes, a moneyed life in the Belle Époque looks like an ideal existence.

'An Ideal Husband' comes to the big screen for the second time here as Jeremy Northam's Sir Robert Chiltern is blackmailed by Mrs Cheveley (Julianne Moore) because of a mistake in his past. Supported ably by Cate Blanchett as spotless Lady Gertrude, Rupert Everett as Lord Goring, John Wood as Goring's father, Lord Caversham, and Lindsay Duncan as Lady Markby, this version manages to be both entertaining and have a refreshing take on the play.Opened out from stage constraints as a film should be, this version is well-acted, energetic, but perhaps a little short on focus. 'An Ideal Husband' can be played seriously or as high farce; this film stumbles a bit before it decides which way to go.

Parker's adaptation follows the tradition of source author Wilde: the glamour, grace, charm and delight of moneyed society mask a viper's pit of self-interest, and personal and political manipulation. Rupert Everett is born into roles of this period and provenance with his chiselled charm and diverting ease with women and men alike. The trio of women with whom he consorts as if they were, alternately, courtesans and diplomats, are superb. Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett might be relied on to be delicate but deadly damsels but I was pleased to see that Minnie Driver could not only hold her own but also create and occupy a different role from the other two.This is not a one-trick picture with people simply being suffocatingly courteous and then sticking in the knife but populated with real characters creating a real sense of a fragile surface patina to their behaviour, as at risk as the more substantial lives which it represents. Parker directs with a discreet hand and the production is beautifully designed. 6/10

Here was a chance not just to see a movie aimed at grown-ups but to see CATE BLANCHETT as well. Truthfully, I enjoy more contemporary settings for English movies and Cate was certainly more appealing covered with western grit and grime in THE MISSING than covered from head to toe in formal clothes. This Oscar Wilde comedy did not yield so much as a chuckle, but as a story it was moderately interesting. I had to keep in mind their excesses and mannerisms were part of the alleged comedy.When my mind wandered away from the inadequate storyline, I was thinking that the England and the English upper class pictured herein were not much to my liking, but it was people like this that ran the Empire at the time when England ruled most of the world. Both Iran and Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, were under British control --- and life was more peaceful for us all.