Film
The Happy Prince
- Director
- Rupert Everett
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 105 mins
Rupert Everett‘s long-gestating dream project and his debut as writer/director: a biopic of Oscar Wilde (played by prosthetic-enhanced Everett himself, naturally), focusing on Wilde’s final years – a period of his life that has rarely been tackled on screen.
Laden with flashbacks and framed by his children’s fable of the same title, The Happy Prince finds the increasingly jowly Wilde a spent creative force, knocking around the continent as he lapses into absinthe-soaked decline after his release from Reading gaol. Colin Morgan plays Bosie, with whom our louche hero is briefly reunited, while Everett’s chum Colin Firth is cast as loyal Reggie Turner (primarily to secure the film’s funding). Reviews have been mixed, with plenty of praise for Everett’s performance alongside the suggestion that his script lacks focus.
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