First name, Oscar, here reduced to the role of martyr in a homosexual Passion play, the hapless plaintiff in an indictment of a benighted time. Up to and including his infamous libel trial, this is a conventional "biopic" (notwithstanding the breathtakingly unexpected opening in Colorado, with a rollicking Copland-esque musical accompaniment) on a most unconventional subject, a piece of hack-work on an artist of genius, hopping and skipping and jumping in chronological order through marriage, baby, homosexual initiation ("There has to be a first time for everything"), another baby, The Picture of Dorian Gray (immediate result of a stroll through the National Portrait Gallery in the company of a Mr. Gray), Lady Windermere's Fan, fame, fortune, assorted naked Adonises in bed, the irreplaceable "Bosie," and the latter's brutish father, the sadistic Marquess of Queensberry. For those who prefer artists' biographies to first-hand contact with their works -- for those, in this instance, whose sense of tragedy will be sufficiently aroused over losses in the yuppie-esque areas of "prosperity" and "lifestyle" -- the film will perhaps meet the bare-bones need. For those, meantime, who prefer the first-hand contact, it will perhaps fall short of insulting, but not short of disappointing, depressing, boring, irritating. With Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Vanessa Redgrave, Tom Wilkinson; directed by Brian Gilbert. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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