Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Colin Morgan, Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson, Anna Chancellor, Edwin Thomas, Beatrice Dalle, Julian Wadham, John Standing, Andre Penvern, Tom Colley, Stephen M. Gilbert, Alister Cameron, Benjamin Voisin, Antonio Spagnuolo, Franca Abategiovanni, Joshua McGuire, Ronald Pickup.

It takes a fearless and heroic person to bring a legend to the screen, to attempt, to undoubtedly crack, the enigma that lay behind their story, be it in the fascinating, gruesome, indecorous or the beautiful; or in the case of one of the more celebrated writers of the time, Oscar Wilde. It could be argued that all four states of human feeling and postured masks can be seen than in perhaps anybody else who strode across the world’s stage in an era which was harsh, unforgiving, brutal and by today’s standards ruthlessly riddled with toxic masculinity.

To be The Happy Prince in such an era, to play to the gallery even when the world has turned against you, to have your eyes opened by the torture you have placed upon yourself and those that have surround you, that is courage itself. It is courage, bravado, theatrical passion that you seek out the one thing that makes you happy, it is the theatrical passion that has brought Rupert Everett’s lifelong pursuit of Oscar Wilde to the fore in his own hard fought written film, and one that from the outset pulls no punches, no quarter given of his relationship with his wife Constance, with Lord Alfred Douglas, the loyal Robbie Ross and Reggie Turner, no stain, just hard facts, with the sprinkling of dramatic cause throughout.

You may know Oscar Wilde the public persona but so very few people know Oscar the human being, the scar that lived with him after being sentenced to hard labour for being nothing more than human, of having desires that in the reign of Queen Victoria would see that toxic masculinity come out in force, especially if it protected the image of the Empire.

Not only does Rupert Everett deserve huge applause for having the tenacity to bring the last days of Oscar Wilde to the screen, a hard labour of love itself given the years of dedication it has taken to bring such a tale to audiences, but his acting is exemplary throughout, the touches of vulnerability, of cheating on the patience of his friends and lovers, and the sadness that in the end such a figure, that any man or woman could be bought so low by the establishment, is resolutely, and passionately shown.

With Colin Firth, Colin Morgan and Edwin Thomas giving exceptional supporting performances, The Happy Prince is a hard-fought film, won with style, bowled over by its search for a truth, unrelenting in its appreciation for the darkness and the light shown in equal measure.

You may know Oscar Wilde, but until you have seen The Happy Prince, it is fair to suggest that you don’t know Oscar at all.

Ian D. Hall