Blistering performances.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I watch this fascinating film. How beautiful it is. How great man Oscar Wilde was.In fact, I've always said, that it is very important to know the biography of writers, in order to understand his work. Now ,I realize that it is also crucial. His work "The Picture of Dorian Gray" has left the most beautiful impression on anyone who had read it. I have never heard a bad opinion about that book. I almost read his work "De Profundis, " which is left an even bigger impression on me. Free sentences and philosophical thoughts, thoughts about life, very advanced for that time, a lot of emotion and truth, which is pronounced in this work, have made me his biggest fan. Since the act is written in short forms, in general, could not realize that this is a farewell letter to his young lover, for which it has slaved for two years. I found out tonight,while I am watching the movie about his life. Therefore, I say, it is necessary to know about life as a writer, that would be the right way, understand his work. Now I have to read "De Profundis" again, because otherwise it will be understood in light of new knowledge. Since I am his great literary fan, much easier I submitted a homosexual scene, which is in the movie. Yet he was a great man, sharp of mind and true words, and with his intellect surpassed the former, and I think the present time.

In 1882, famed writer Oscar Wilde (Stephen Fry) visits America. He returns to England to marry Constance Lloyd (Jennifer Ehle) to the approval of his mother (Vanessa Redgrave). He begins a sexual affair with his friend Robbie Ross (Michael Sheen) and has a family with Constance. Then he falls for the dashing, self-indulgent Lord Alfred Douglas (Jude Law).Bosie is dislikable. In short, he's a rich annoying brat. The only person less likable is his father. It makes the relationship unappealing. The movie could have portrayed it as a destructive obsession. That would be more epic. The movie needs to foreshadow the dire consequences by presenting a darker attitude of the day. His homosexuality is mostly a secret but those who know seems to tolerate it. It is missing the dangerous edge until the arrival of the father halfway into it. Overall, it is elevated by the performance of Fry but it needs more danger in the first half. Fry's calm demeanor doesn't project danger. His relationship isn't appealing. It could have been more intensity but Fry is good.

'Wilde' is the 1997 film biographical film of the legendary playwright, author and poet, whose career was cut short after being prosecuted for being a homosexual in 19th century England. It stars the enormously versatile Stephen Fry, who bears a striking resemblance to the actual Oscar Wilde found in old photographs taken of him. Jude Law, who plays Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (aka 'Bosie'), also resembles the real 'Bosie' of history. The 1997 version towers over the 1960 film starring Robert Morley, who was completely miscast as the sensitive Wilde.One of the main objections to this new 'artistic version', is that not enough attention was paid to Wilde's professional career as a writer. May I respectfully disagree with these opinions? If one wants to find out about Wilde's career as a writer, why not go and read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' or watch 'The Importance of Being Earnest'? There is nothing inherently dramatic about his rise to the top in the literary circles he moved in. What is FAR MORE dramatic, is the whole history of Wilde's fall from grace, following his malicious prosecution by an intolerant Victorian society.Another objection from critics on the internet, is that there's too much emphasis here on Wilde's moments of intimacy, particularly with Bosie. Ignoring those prurient souls who find any images or suggestions of gay sex to be abhorrent, a case can be made that those scenes emphasizing Wilde's sexual proclivities, do slow the film down in the first half. On the other hand, by refusing to ignore them, screenwriter Julian Mitchell, has faithfully rendered Wilde's desires as well as his compulsions.The first half of 'Wilde' indeed is quite slow, as most of the real 'drama', doesn't kick in, until the second half. In the first half, we're introduced to Wilde's caring wife and two children, along with Bosie and how Wilde gradually becomes enamored with him. The danger Mitchell almost falls into, is making Wilde into too much of a nice guy. As it turns out, Mitchell makes it clear that Wilde did have his Achilles heel. And that of course was Bosie. Why did the brilliant and sensitive Wilde, fall for a lout like Bosie? Clearly, the younger man is continually unfaithful and goes as far as attending orgies, where he has sex with other men, and Wilde has no guilt feelings about playing the part of voyeur. There was obviously something that Wilde saw in Bosie and chose to concentrate on the good points and not the bad. On the other hand, Wilde did indeed recognize that Bosie was quite troubled, but due to his good nature, forgave him, arguing that his unfaithful lover couldn't help himself, due to being victimized by an abusive father.Wilde is much more than a story about a great writer. The prosecution of Oscar Wilde is a seminal moment in the history of society's attitude toward homosexuality. In the modern era, the trial of Oscar Wilde marked the beginning and the Stonewall Riots, perhaps marked the end of society's non-acceptance of homosexuality. The most absorbing part of 'Wilde' is the conflict that develops between Bosie's father, the Marquess of Queensbury, who accuses Wilde of corrupting his son. As it turns out, Wilde falls into the trap that Bosie's father has set for him: he sues him for criminal libel, ignoring friends' advice that the father's accusations that he actually engaged in sex with men, were true. Wilde's poetic defense of himself during the trial, sadly holds no weight, as the Victorian judge and jury, make it clear that they no have tolerance for Wilde's behavior, regardless of his motives.'Wilde' is a very well made, artistic film, that does an excellent job of recounting Oscar Wilde's personal history and sad, public fate. If you're willing to tolerate a slow-moving first half, you will be rewarded at film's end, which emphasizes the tragedy of a brilliantly talented man, whose career was cut short, due to a society which wasn't ready to accept him, merely on the basis of his sexual predilections, alone.

I have just seen the 1960 film The Trials Of Oscar Wilde, with that very good actor (and womanising hellraiser Peter Finch as the man himself, and in the light of that film, I should like to edit this review. This is what I originally wrote: Like John Wayne, Stephen Fry is always Stephen Fry in a film: he never manages to get the viewer - well, this viewer, at least - to suspend his disbelief. And that rather kills any film he's in stone dead. The Duke had the same problem for me: it was never anyone else but John Wayne acting in a film, and the sad conclusion could well be that neither gent can really act. As for Wilde, well another reviewer here has described it as a document, not a film, and that about sums it up. It is said to be based on Richard Ellman's biography of Wilde and what we get is just that, a more or less potted two hour lesson in the main events of Wilde's life. And perhaps being somehow contaminated by Fry's lack of acting ability, Michael Sheen, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Maggie Smith, Zoe Wannamaker and the rest also come across as 'being in a costume drama', which more or less kills the film's other virtues in a trice. And that's a shame, because it is a rather handsome looking film into which was put a lot of thought. But given that it is, to put it very harshly, somewhat brain dead, all that effort has rather been wasted. Oh, well. It's not actually bad, but it's not very good, either.That was it, to which I should like to add that for for a far, far, far superior and more intelligent portrayal of Oscar Wilde and his trials, go and see Peter Finch in The Trials Of Oscar Wilde. For one thing you realise quite how gratuitous and irrelevant the gay sex scenes are in Fry's version. The earlier film covers exactly the same ground and conveys exactly what Wilde was up to without any such scenes at all. That is, however, by the by. This version just isn't up to it. Finch's version was.