Depicting the life of famed author Oscar Wilde in his final days, The Happy Prince is a bold and unflinching close-up of a man tortured by his various passions. Despite wild success and the resulting rewards, including a loving wife and children, Oscar suffers. Conflicted by his relentless passion for his male lover in a world dominated by conservative norms and values of Victorian British society, Oscar finds no peace. Or mercy. Convicted of sodomy, he is sentenced to years of hard labor in a cruel prison system intent on punishment of those who dare be different.
Rupert Everett, so lovable opposite Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding (oh, and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek), is writer, director, and star. His performance is remarkable and completely believable, and dominates nearly every scene of the film; no other character is developed to any satisfying degree. All orbit around Oscar and are solely defined by their relation to him. Women are a mere whispering inconvenience (and funding source of idle hours and fevered debauchery) and only Wilde’s wife (Emily Watson) makes any meaningful presence. The movie is all about male lust, loyalty (or the lack thereof), cruelty, narcissism, and loneliness.
Oscar Wilde is an influential figure in Western literature, and this film strives to honor his story by revealing the complex blend of life experience and choices that drove much of his brilliance and behavioral choices. It brought to mind many questions about this film’s focus…
At what point do you judge a person’s life? What period of time defines a person’s legacy- their peak? Their valleys? On what criteria is a person’s value to society judged? Their contributions? Their public failures? What is most important in the long run – public success or personal failure?
This depiction of a brilliant man’s sad final days leaves a bitter taste, like Wilde’s favored absinthe.
It is worth noting how The Happy Prince offers a lush peek of early twentieth century European life in seaside France, nighttime cabarets, snowy Paris, and Neapolitan street scenes; costumes and sets bring to life the Impressionist tableaux of artists like Renoir and Lautrec.
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