#ruperteverett

Whenever a play is successfully adapted to film, it's hard to tell who is responsible. It isn't like much content has been removed or altered for 1999's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Is it just the subject matter working its magic? Partially for sure but consider whether this retelling captures the original prose and structure. How does the movie look? Does it have re-watch value? Are the actors good in their roles?

Hermia (Anna Friel) is in love with Lysander (Dominic West). They want to marry but her father Egeus (Bernard Bill) wants to pair her with Demetrius (Christian Bale). Meanwhile, Helena (Calista Flockhart) is desperately in love with Demetrius but they broke up and he has no interest in trying again; he's after Hermia. She and Lysander decide to make a run for it, pursued by Demetrius, and Helena (who hopes to win him back in the process). Meanwhile, the king of the fairies, Lord Oberon (Rupert Everett), and his queen Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer) are in the middle of a lover’s quarrel. It's up to trickster Puck (Stanley Tucci) to mend their relationship. Finally, we also follow a group of would-be playwrights putting together a comedic/dramatic presentation of Pyramus and Thisbe. The stories are interwoven as the fairies’ magic interferes with the lovers and the actors.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an excellent play, even if you don’t understand Olde English completely. There are plenty of clever rhymes, and the comedic scenarios are timeless. The three stories are fairly simple, making them easy to follow. On DVD, you've got the option to turn on the subtitles, which makes it even easier. The camera's ability for closeups gives us a better look at the actors than you could ever get in an auditorium, which facilitates your understanding as well.

Rather than setting the story in ancient Greece, director Michael Hoffman has selected 19th Century Italy. While bicycles may be present and the only togas we see belong to the fairy-folk, it works. Any period with candlelight, lavish castles, old-timey attitudes, and green woods lovers could stroll through fits this material.

Performance-wise, everyone does well. The standouts are easily Kevin Kline as Bottom, one of the actors putting on the play-within-a-play, and Stanley Tucci as Puck. The performers have good chemistry, making this comedic romance unexpectedly sexy. The movie's got an infamous mud-wrestling scene and for me, it was one of the highlights. Throughout the film, everyone is fighting over who is going to get together with who and it gets even messier/funnier when Puck's enchantments get crossed. The ladies chase after the men and depending on what stage they're in, they run away from, run towards, or are completely bewildered by their affections. What better way to represent this messy sort of fun than by having them all get dirty for real? If that doesn't get you, some very selectively placed rose petals and bushes will.

If you’re looking at A Midsummer Night’s Dream and analyzing the feminist ideals within, or discussing how marriage and love relationships can make an individual's identity disappear, you’re looking too hard. It’s a movie that features a play within a play, some big laughs and magical enchantments being dropped left and right so that the audience can have a good time. It’s a light romantic comedy. It makes you laugh. It makes you happy to share it with someone. I’m not sure if I can pinpoint anything in it that “improves” the material, or would necessarily make it better than any other adaptations or live performances but that’s alright. The 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is exactly what it wants to be: fun. (On DVD, August 1, 2015)

That moment you have all been waiting for is here! At last! Rebecca Jean-Carroll’s official and Colin-enamoured review of Rupert Everett’s “The Happy Prince”. The long overdue and brave biopic of the formidable talent that is the one and only Mr Oscar Wilde. 

It’s been some time since I saw the film and I left it until now to review in case my opinion should change upon further consideration. Turns out it didn’t. Back in the day, I said;

“Accomplished film-making & a fearless interpretation of a fearless genius but somehow unsatisfying. The final pieces of Oscar's tragic plight rapidly sewn together, in the haze of drunken excess, asks for your sorrow too often in words & not in deeds”

Yeah, I kinda nailed my opinion of it right there but just for the lols... let me expand upon that.

The first twenty minutes or so of “The Happy Prince” feels like you’ve crashed some cringe worthy party that stopped being fun several hours ago. We’ve all been there right? It is not a particularly settling introduction to a film, in my humble opinion and the only credit I can give it is that it is bold and brave. Question is though, does it pay off? I would say no and here’s why...

We all know Rupert Everett loves his subject matter and was keen to depict the post-Prison years. So he decides to land us right in the gutter with our fallen star without a particularly strong introduction TO Oscar. It was lazy, lazy writing. Here I can surmise the main problem of the film for me and that it relied far too heavily upon what we, the audience, already know. So as we’re thrust into this dismal display of self-destruction our empathy is driven not through the film and not even through the performance, it is the contrast with the man we know he once was. The Happy Prince makes too few attempts to truly present us with a man on a journey and was, for my money, too heavily focused upon representing a relatively brief moment of decline. You could be forgiven for thinking that I would LOVE a film that starts at a low point and ends at an even lower one... but you're wrong. There’s something to be said for balance.

The unfortunate side effect of lingering in this painful plight towards death is that it is never going to be the WANTED memory of an icon. Rupert wanted to depict the genius and the idiot, which is great, because we all knew that’s kind of EXACTLY what Oscar was. However I would argue that I saw so little of the genius in Oscar, just the fool, just the broken and the defeated. The final result is as bleak as and with too many ineffective but obvious moments of light relief. I can well understand the desire to depict that hardship and the cruelty Oscar was subject to at the hands of his society. Where other films did not dare, this one did but for all its considerable efforts, the end result was deeply unsatisfying. I expected to be drowning in tears by the end of this film but I couldn’t. The only moment that was particularly emotional was the Clapham Junction Station scene. That was painful and that was hard to watch. For the rest of it, so much was lost in a tendency to put too fine a point on the grim reality. It was brave and it was dark but it lacked ambition, falling short of the mark and strangely static. It started low and just got lower. That’s a tough ask of an audience.

... And if you thought “boy, she really doesn’t like this movie does she?” You ain’t seen nothing yet. Let’s shower Colin Morgan with some praise for a minute though. Much like in the film, he’s taken a while to show up.

So Colin Morgan plays Bosie. For obvious reasons it was an excellent bit of casting and LOVE that hair. If we go back to that notion that “The Happy Prince” was rather reliant on what WE already know about Oscar, they made us wait a good 40 minutes or so for the man we know who is going to shake everything up, or fuck everything up as it were. A deeply shameful amount of time to wait for anything... especially when it is Colin. Then when Bosie did show up he was barely in it and he sure as hell didn’t have nearly enough to say. Bosie’s presence in the piece is almost entirely unexplained and I couldn’t help but think what about the poor fools who don’t actually know who he is? As I expected Colin did the absolute best with what he had and he was more than a match for Rupert Everett’s (ok I’ll admit it, powerhouse) performance. Colin was delightfully bitchy and truly beautiful... that scene after they meet in the station... Oh My God... be still my beating heart... the beauty was killing me. I couldn’t concentrate. I was all like “Yo, Colin, you wanna take it down a notch because it’s getting inappropriate in here”... Oops. Fangirling again. Sorry. 

Colin was amazing, that’s all I’m saying.

***SPOILERS HERE***

This is where my theory comes in and I warn you... it’s dark. I’ve already accused “The Happy Prince” of being lazy, static in terms of a story and too pre-occupied with every bit of grim reality it could stuff into the picture. Now I accuse it of being more condemning of Oscar Wilde than is necessary. 

Let us go back to the opening sequence that ends in a very unsettling scene where Oscar has paid a teenager for sex whilst his little brother waits on the other side of the door. If that didn’t freak you out, as it turns out later on, he’s been adopted as some sort of father figure to them. They are his children in place of his ACTUAL children who had the distinct pleasure of watching their Mother live in constant pain and misery until the day she died. Nice. 

Then there’s the Bosie scene which is both bleak and absurd. Following their first meeting and talk of running away together we focus on Bosie who lingers in the corner of some horribly dull-lit hotel room. The illicit nature of their affair (which of course it was) couldn’t be any more pungent if it tried. My problem with it is how it was staged. Maybe I’m reading too much into it but I got the distinct impression Bosie was not at all inclined towards it. I’m not gonna lie. I wasn’t seeing a great deal of consent, pleasure and certainly not love in that moment. Obviously I can anticipate that would have been intended but for the first time ever I’m feeling sorry for Bosie. Maybe it’s the infatuation talking but Bosie looks like a victim here. He makes a good point later on when he says he’s “sick and tired of being blamed for the actions of a glutinous snob”. That is what Oscar is in this film and he didn’t need a whole lot of help from Bosie on that. 

As for the absurd cut from Colin with no shirt on and the train coming out of the tunnel... I’m sure someone thought that was funny. Meanwhile to most others it was like the film had raised its hand to the fact it wasn’t even trying to be sophisticated now. Some archaic movie trick that kind of sums up the film. It wanted to be brave, it wanted to be different but ultimately it shied away from the real work required. 

“The Happy Prince” under-uses its great cast (and I’m not just talking about Colin Morgan). It was the Oscar show but without an Oscar anyone should have wanted to see. Think of the poor fools who don’t know much about Oscar as they go in to see that film. I wouldn’t blame a single one of them if they thought... nah, I’m not going to read his stuff. He’s stupid.

It’s all very well Rupert getting all defensive to say his film was based entirely on little known facts about Oscar but what on earth did we gain from it? Did the film faithfully depict the man for ALL that he was? No. It found him at his worst and buried him with it. Maybe Rupert wanted to take Oscar down a peg or two, maybe he can still be a gay icon without being the best of people, that all makes a lot of sense but again... why? Why tell us what we already know in such a way that so distinctly separates him from the fearless and charming genius that he was? Oscar is a legend because he can be both foolish and a genius in the same breath. Rupert’s Oscar, could only be one or the other at the same time. 

Overall: It lacked context and was therefore lazy. The pre-occupation with the fool in Oscar was somewhat on the nose and actually un-sympathetic when combined with his snobbery, vanity and selfishness. As previously mentioned “The Happy Prince” simply asks for your sympathy and steals Oscar’s own words to do it. Giving us a last minute glimpse of a man with a heart, with empathy and soul. It’s too little, too obvious and too late now though. 

In short, “The Happy Prince” wasn’t smart enough to start what it finished and did more to tarnish a gay-icon than it did to liberate him.