The Hap­py Prince – first look review

Per­haps the only thing the British film indus­try loves more than a lav­ish peri­od dra­ma is a lav­ish peri­od dra­ma biopic. Rupert Everett’s direc­to­r­i­al debut The Hap­py Prince fol­lows in the foot­steps of no less than three attempts to cat­a­logue the life of lit­er­ary leg­end Oscar Wilde, and does so with the panache that one might assume nec­es­sary for fic­tion­al­is­ing his life, but there’s a curi­ous gaudy slant to pro­ceed­ings which sees it not far off BBC prime time dra­ma territory.

Tak­ing on the con­sid­er­able task of direct­ing, writ­ing and star­ring in his film, Everett lav­ish­es great care on a sub­ject he clear­ly holds in high esteem, and to his cred­it, does not shy away from paint­ing a less-than-glam­orous por­trait of an aging Wilde, syphilitic and lech­er­ous as he lives out his exile in Europe fol­low­ing his scan­dalous impris­on­ment for gross inde­cen­cy. He solic­its poor Parisian boys for sex, regail­ing them with sto­ries from his long-gone glo­ry days, and shuns the sound advice of his clos­est friends in favour of his hedo­nis­tic pursuits.

These allies – Rob­bie Ross and Reg­gie Turn­er – are played by Edwin Thomas and Col­in Firth (fans of the St. Trinian’s remakes, rejoice, for your Firth and Everett reunion is nigh!) Col­in Mor­gan makes a flashy turn as the Byron-esque Lord Alfred ​‘Bosie’ Dou­glas, often regard­ed as the great love of Wilde’s life, but the film very much belongs to the larg­er-than-life char­ac­ter of Wilde. It owes much to Phillip Kaufman’s Quills, which char­tered a sim­i­lar course some 15 years ago, about the ail­ing and incar­cer­at­ed Mar­quis De Sade. There are sim­i­lar emo­tion­al beats hit, but Everett, while watch­able as the pranc­ing Hap­py Prince, can­not hold a can­dle to Geof­frey Rush’s insid­i­ous Sade.

It seems a great shame to waste Emi­ly Wat­son too, who plays Wilde’s suf­fer­ing wife Con­stance Lloyd, a fas­ci­nat­ing fig­ure in her own right per­haps over­due for a cin­e­mat­ic exam­i­na­tion of her own. It’s a com­pe­tent but unre­mark­able effort, all told. Shaky hand­held cam­er­a­work dur­ing rau­cous par­ty scenes and an over­wrought emo­tion­al score feel too pre­scrip­tive, and although there are a num­ber of pithy one-lin­ers that might raise a tit­ter, it lacks the wit which made Wilde the toast of Lon­don in his prime.