X
- 2018
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 45 m
- 2018
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 45 m
Summary In a cheap Parisian hotel room Oscar Wilde lies on his death bed and the past floods back, transporting him to other times and places. Was he once the most famous man in London? The artist crucified by a society that once worshiped him? The lover imprisoned and freed, yet still running towards ruin in the final chapter of his life? Under...
Directed By: Rupert Everett
- 2018
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 45 m
- 2018
- R
- Sony Pictures Classics
- 1 h 45 m
The Happy Prince
64
6.3
Where to Watch
Summary In a cheap Parisian hotel room Oscar Wilde lies on his death bed and the past floods back, transporting him to other times and places. Was he once the most famous man in London? The artist crucified by a society that once worshiped him? The lover imprisoned and freed, yet still running towards ruin in the final chapter of his life? Under...
Directed By: Rupert Everett
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
64
54% Positive
14 Reviews
14 Reviews
42% Mixed
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 26 Critic Reviews
64
54% Positive
14 Reviews
14 Reviews
42% Mixed
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Everett looks at home in this role and breathes new life into Wilde. The Happy Prince proves that Rupert Everett was born to tell the tumultuous story of a kindred spirit. Oscar Wilde would be proud.
Even if his prosthetics make him look a bit like James May, Everett is near-flawless, and his film is a superb showcase for an actor whose celebrity has at times overshadowed his talent. There’s been plenty of due diligence in terms of the details, and anyone who thinks Wilde was just the Stephen Fry of his day will learn a lot here.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 User Ratings
6.3
56% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
28% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
17% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 User Ratings
6.3
56% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
28% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
17% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
I’m surprised at the somewhat lukewarm reviews here. I really like this film, particularly the grimy but beautiful look of it which evokes 19th century Europe so well you can almost smell it. It’s sentimental, sure, but I think it resonates well with the story of Wilde’s last years. He was a sentimentalist, after all, as well as a narcissist, a satirist and a charmer, and all of these qualities are legible through the melancholia of the story. Beautiful performances, as others have noted.
Report
Rupert Everett directs an absorbing film about the final years of Oscar Wilde, which he also wrote. You can tell that Everett is an actor, since his film is beautifully cast with other wonderful British actors. For example, Emily Watson is excellent as Wilde’s long-suffering wife Constance and likewise Colin Firth as his friend Reggie Turner. Colin Morgan is close to perfect as Bosie, and superb character actors like Tom Wilkinson add to the acting richness of the film. Actor Everett dominates with a sympathetic and nuanced performance as Wilde, and does a very good (if not great) job as director. For example, I wish Everett had included more about Wilde’s great London successes, which would have made the film richer and more comprehensible to non-British audiences.
Report
Florid but warmhearted — much like the man at its center — The Happy Prince is a haunting portrait of the aftermath of betrayal; of how the master of comedy became a tragedy.
Fortunately, the maudlin moments are offset by fine performances, flashes of humor and a visual sense that’s more astute than the script.
Despite Everett's command in the central performance and a script liberally sprinkled with amusing bons mots, The Happy Prince generates only faltering dramatic momentum and a shortage of pathos.
It finds the right harmonized note of melancholy and humor in its closing moments.
The goal here was to show the tragic downfall of a once-praised hero, similar to the actual poem written by Wilde with the same name. But because of the lack of depth in supporting characters and half-baked writing, this movie couldn't have ended fast enough.
Rupert Everett wrote, directed and stars as Oscar Wilde. Most of the story takes place after he's released from his jail, wandering around Europe desperate and sometimes destitute. There are flashbacks to his days of fame and happiness, but it primarily presents a broken man. This might have been less bleak if there were more flashes of his brilliant wit, but as it is, there's lots of introspection and mild misery. Through the hardship, there's tenderness and support from friends that makes it more empathetic. Everett gives a nuanced, absorbing performance and does well with his other responsibilities. Still, it feels slight, lacking the dramatic impact or the incisive dialogue that would have elevated this portrayal.
Report
The professional critics are disappointed by the movie. It is indeed a bit sentimental, a bit too formulaic, which Wilde himself would have panned. If it is not a work of art, it is still a good piece of story-telling: well paced, well photographed and well acted. It is not enthralling but it is entertaining. Compared to the drivel offered these days, we should be thankful for that.
Report
It boggles the mind how a film can take someone as witty and colorful as Oscar Wilde and make the character boring, but that's precisely what writer/actor/director Rupert Everett has done in this misfire of a biopic. By all rights, the picture is obviously a labor of love for its creator, but, with a focus on Wilde's last dark days, a needlessly convoluted script that's all over the map and a noticeable dearth of the snappy banter that made its protagonist famous, the production falls flat and often confuses the viewer with its forward and backward flashes in the action. Handily one of awards season's bigger disappointments.
Report
I was looking forward to seeing "The Happy Prince" as 1) I am a big fan of Rupert Everett who hasn't been doing much in films for quite awhile and 2) I admire Oscar Wilde's writings and witticisms.
I read that Everett has been trying to get this film made for 10 years and even did it on stage for 2 years. He got Colin Firth, Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson to star along with him plus gave Colin Morgan and Edwin Thomas major roles and all deal well with the material given them.
The major problem with "The Happy Prince" is the material, the screenplay written by Everett. He, also, directed and stars in the film which seems too much of a burden that he should have shared by either giving the directing or the screenplay to someone else to do.
Instead of concentrating on Wilde's life after his imprisonment Everett brings in too much of his life before and in turn going back and forth in decades to the point of confusion from Wilde's telling his story of "The Happy Prince" to his own two sons to a street boy and his brother and completely making a puzzle of Lord Alfred Douglas also known as Bosie who was responsible for Wilde's being sentenced to hard labor as a sodomite and his downfall. Bosie also causes Wilde the loss of his income and sons. How Robbie Ross became so important to his life and the role he played has to be just accepted by the audience just as Reggie Turner is without explanation.
With make-up, prosthetics and padding plus acting Rupert Everett gives us a well rounded Oscar Wilde in despair, a failure, a man unable to cope with who he was and who he is after being shunned by all who praised him before. With the destruction of a man who was considered a great playwright the screenwriter/director fails to make the audience feel the despair this man went through after being found guilty on charges of gross decency or of being one of many who did not talk about "the love that dare not speaks its name" and were persecuted for it.
Aside from going back and forth in time and countries not to mention debauchery "The Happy Prince" is pretty dark in the filming and photography while understandable with many places lit just by candlelight gets no relief when outdoors.
Possibly my expectations were too high or I was looking for something that wasn't there. I thought I knew a lot about Wilde's life but people such as Robbie Ross and Reggie Turner were strange names to me and I was hoping to learn more about these two men who were so important to Wilde in his downfall.
I found "The Happy Prince" to be a boring film about an incredible man.
Report
Production Company
Maze Pictures,
Entre Chien et Loup,
Palomar,
Cine Plus Filmproduktion,
Robert Fox Limited,
BBC Film,
Casa Kafka Pictures,
Centre du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles,
Daryl Prince Productions,
Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA),
Heimatfilm,
Italian Tax Credit,
La Wallonie,
Lionsgate UK,
Madeleine Films,
Movie Management,
Proximus,
Radio Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF),
Raindog Films,
Région de Bruxelles-Capitale,
Strat & Go,
Tax Shelter du Gouvernement Fédéral Belge,
Tele München Group (TMG),
Zielke
Release Date Oct 10, 2018
Duration 1 h 45 m
Rating R
Tagline The last days of Oscar Wilde - and the ghosts that haunted them - are vividly evoked...
Awards
London Critics Circle Film Awards
• 1 Win & 5 Nominations
Satellite Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Bavarian Film Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
