Monday 27 May 2019
10:00am and 6:30pm (Allocated Seating)
Directed by Rupert Everett
UK
Drama
105 mins MA15+
Rupert Everett has written, directed and starred in this gripping drama about Oscar Wilde’s final years: his disgraced exile-agony in Naples and Paris on being released from prison after the conviction for “gross indecency.
In a cheap Parisian hotel, Oscar Wilde lies on his deathbed and recalls his past with wit and irony. Was he once the most famous man in London? He reviews the failed attempt to reconcile with his long-suffering wife, the ensuing reprisal of his love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and the devotion of Robbie Ross, who tried and failed to save him from himself. From Dieppe to Naples to Paris, Oscar is a penniless vagabond, shunned by his old acquaintances, but still revered by a strange group of outlaws to whom he tells the old stories – his incomparable talent still sharp.
Reviews.
“Actor Rupert Everett’s mistitled The Happy Prince marks his debut as a film director, and the subject matter is clearly close to his heart”.- David Stratton, The Australian
“[Everett] delivers a towering and persuasive performance in a mostly sombre and sorrowful film and, as director, does a fine job of capturing the period detail”.– Bruce DeMara, Toronto Star
“A bleak film that nevertheless brims with the spirit and cheek of Wilde himself, Everett is here revealed as the man best suited to telling this particular tale”. Tom Augustine, New Zealand Herald