This is 1895, and Wilde is in prison for gross indecency after the details of his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, his beloved Bosie, became public knowledge. As the aging, wretched prisoner, he is cold, hungry, sick, dirty and bored. He is in conversation with his younger self – a witty, elegant man, dressed in immaculate velvet, with rouged cheeks, who is urging his counterpart to strive for survival. Wilde debates grand subjects with himself. He rails against England and “sound English common sense” and the English education system. He talks of morality and art and faith and God. Is art useless? There is much to say about love, too, from the betrayal of “sweet Bosie” to his adoration of his wife and children. He wonders if his ability to see “all the beauty in the world”, in men and in women, makes him a superior man. If his sexuality is superior, should he expect an honor from the Queen? “Well, certainly a tax rebate, at the very least,” he quips. It's a narrative that not surprising speaks of Uranian love and of Wilde's attraction to a younger convict serving his time, being the sole light in his days of endless darkness.
If you are in the mood for an hour of one man talking to himself about the great misfortunes of his life, in a dim, candlelit cell, while the perforated eardrum that would contribute to his death causes him great pain, then this is a poetic and very artistic play turned film that I imagine would be even more electric on stage. Toby Stephens played two Wildes, one the broken prisoner, skinny with his hair cut; the other the Wilde of yore, foppish and adored in his burgundy velvet jacket. These two selves in conversation with each other meant that Stephens had double the work to do, but it allowed the play to explore Wilde’s brilliance and contradictions. The script itself tries to have this running idea of Wilde not wanting to admit who he is to himself, and whilst there are some elements of the play that develop this idea, over the course of the runtime what we are really seeing is Wilde debating ideas he's had with himself. Overall, the script feels like it wanted to show a broken Wilde remembering himself in order to be ready to admit that he is himself, but doesn't quite give us enough of a contrast between each scene to show the character developing to this conclusion. You need to be in a certain frame of mind wanting to appreciate art to relish this film. For someone like me, this got very theatrical and atmospheric and I found it a tough and uncompromising watch and a little too one-note. Wilde was and will always remain a very important figure in gay history. (3/10)
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