"AN IDEAL HUSBAND" (1999) Review

"AN IDEAL WOMAN" (1999) Review

I have a confession. I have not seen that many adaptations of Oscar Wilde's plays and novels. And it has been quite a while since I viewed my last adaptation, namely the 1999 film, "AN IDEAL HUSBAND". I was surprised to discover that this 1999 movie was not the first adaptation of Wilde's 1895 stage play. There have been other adaptations - including four other films and several radio productions. But this is the only adaptation I have ever seen.

Written and directed by Oliver Parker, "AN IDEAL HUSBAND" opens with a ball held at the home of British government minister Sir Robert Chiltern and his wife, Lady Gertrude Chiltern. Among those attending the ball are:

*Arthur, Viscount Goring, a close friend of the Chilterns
*Mrs. Laura Cheveley, a former British socialite and Lady Gertrude's former schoolmate
*Miss Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert's younger sister
*Earl of Caversham, Lord Arthur's father
*Lady Markby, a friend of Mrs. Cheveley
*Tommy Trafford, Sir Robert's aide and potential suitor for Mabel
*Sir Edward, a newspaper baron

During the ball, Mrs. Cheveley approaches Sir Robert with a request to help support a fraudulent scheme she is financing to build a canal in Argentina. Mrs. Cheveley's request is tainted with blackmail. If Sir Robert does not agree to her request, she plans to reveal that he had sold a Cabinet secret to her late mentor and lover, Baron Arnheim, which enabled the latter to buy shares in the Suez Canal Company three days before the British government announced its purchase of the company. Arnheim's payoff was the basis of Sir Robert's fortune and Mrs. Cheveley has Robert's letter to Arnheim as proof of the latter's crime. In desperation, Robert turns to his friend, Arthur Goring, to help him deal with the blackmailing socialite, who was a former lover of Arthur.

I understand there had been changes made to Oscar Wilde's original plot. Since I have never read or seen the play, I will not comment on these changes. Instead, I want to discuss the movie. Overall, I thought it was an entertaining and charming tale about the slippery slopes of moral ambiguity and social hypocrisy. As I watched the movie's narrative unfold, it occurred to me that it revolved around a good deal of hiding, deception and misconceptions - the very traits that have been a part of romantic comedies in Hollywood for years. The epitome of this kind of storytelling could be found in the sequence in which Lord Goring found himself greeting a variety of visitors inside his home during the space of one night, while he and his valet struggled to keep all or most of them hidden in separate rooms. "AN IDEAL HUSBAND" also featured some sparkling dialogue, thanks to the pens of Oscar Wilde and the movie's screenwriter/director, Oliver Parker. Both Rupert Everett and Julianne Moore received the cream of the lines:

"Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself." - Arthur, Lord Goring

"Do you know, Gertrude, I don't mind your talking morality a bit. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike. You dislike me, I am quite aware of that, and I have always detested you." - Mrs. Laura Cheveley

"All I know, Gertrude, is that it takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love. Gertrude, you have more courage than any woman I have ever known. Do not be afraid now to use it." - Lord Goring

As one can see, Lord Goring and Mrs. Cheverley are among my two favorite characters in the story, along with young Mabel Chiltern. Most of the other characters seemed to wallow in arrogance, self-deception or priggishness. My least favorite character proved to be Sir Robert Chiltern. I found him not only priggish, but also hypocritical and dishonest. I realize that audiences are supposed to regard Mrs. Cheveley as the worst kind. And perhaps she is. But her dishonesty did not strike me as hypocritical, as Sir Robert's.

I have two problems with the plot for "AN IDEAL HUSBAND". I also found it rather annoying that she was the only character who suffered for her dishonesty . . . unlike Sir Robert. The worst he had suffered was a scare and a wife whose disappointment in him only lasted a few days. Then again . . . Oscar Wilde was a man. I should not have been surprised that he would have allowed Sir Robert to suffer as little consequences as possible for his transgressions. Another problem I had with the movie was its last half hour. Following Laura Cheveley's departure from London, Lord Goring finally asked Mable Chiltern for her hand in marriage. However, Sir Robert had refused to give, due to his discovery that Lord Goring and Laura Cheveley had been lovers in the past. The plot for the film's last half hour seemed like a completely different story, aside from it being a consequence of Lord Goring's past. I think Laura Cheveley left the story some twenty to thirty minutes too soon. This made the last half hour feel almost disjointed and unnecessary.

I have no complaints about the movie's production and look. I really enjoyed Michael Howells' production designs for the film. I thought he did an excellent job of re-creating late Victorian London. This was especially apparent in crowd scenes that featuring the elite riding along Hyde Park's Rotten Row and balls and parties for the elite, including the Chiltern's ball during the film's first half. Howells' work was greatly enhanced by Rod McLean's art direction and Katie Lee's set decorations. Yes, I have not forgotten about the costume designs created by Caroline Harris. What can I say? They were exquisite, as shown in the images below:

 

The performances featured in "AN IDEAL HUSBAND" struck me as first-rate. There was not a performance in this movie that did not failed to impress me. The movie featured solid, yet charming performances from the likes of Ben Pullen, Nikolas Grace, Peter Vaughn, Marsha Fitzlan, Simon Russell Beale and Lindsay Duncan, whom I found especially entertaining as Laura Cheveley's witty friend, Lady Markby. Jeroen Krabbé did an excellent job in conveying the ambiguous, yet corrupt nature of Sir Robert's mentor, Baron Arnheim. John Wood gave a slightly funny performance as Lord Goring's stuffy father, the Earl of Caversham. Minnie Driver's portrayal of Sir Robert's younger sister Mabel Chiltern not only struck me as funny, witty and completely charming.

I must admit that I found the characters of Sir Robert and Lady Gertrude Chiltern a bit off-putting, but I cannot deny that both Jeremy Northam and Cate Blanchett breathed life into their characters. Northam did an excellent job in capturing the hypocrisy and ambition of Sir Robert Chiltern. And Northam also ably conveyed Sir Robert's obvious love for his wife. Blanchett gave an equally skillful performance as Lady Gertrude Chiltern. The actress did an excellent job of portraying how Gertrude's love for Sir Robert dangerously edged toward blind idealism and the character's emotional devastation upon learning about her husband's past transgression. Julianne Moore earned a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Mrs. Laura Cheveley. And it was a well deserved nomination, as far as I am concerned. I thought she gave one of the film's best performances as the scheming blackmailing socialite, who also possessed a talent for acute and pragmatic observations of human nature and society. The film's other best performance came from Rupert Everett, who portrayed the superficially self-absorbed Lord Goring. And that is one of the reasons why I enjoyed Everett's performance so much. He managed to convey the warmth and wisdom underneath the shallow playboy with style, wit and subtlety. Like Moore, Everett managed to earn a Golden Globe nomination.

I enjoyed "AN IDEAL HUSBAND". Well . . . most of it. I thought Oliver Parker did an excellent job of adapting Oscar Wilde's play with a witty script and a first-rate cast led by Rupert Everett. It is a pity that the last act of the movie seemed almost like an afterthought. Oh well.

"AN IDEAL HUSBAND" (1999) Photo Gallery

Below is a gallery of images from "AN IDEAL HUSBAND", the 1999 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1895 play. Adapted and directed by Oliver Parker, the movie starred Rupert Everett, Cate Blanchett, Jeremy Northam, Minnie Driver and Julianne Moore:



"AN IDEAL HUSBAND" (1999) Photo Gallery

"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" (1998) Review

"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" (1998) Review

As a rule, I have never been an ardent fan of Charles Dickens' novels. I suppose my aversion to his writing stemmed from being forced to read his 1838 tale, "Oliver Twist", while in my early teens. That was the last time I had read a Dickens novel, but several film and television adaptations of his work awaited me for many years down the road. And I did not warm up to them. 

After years of avoiding Dickens' novels or adaptations of his work, I finally decided to put my aversion of his writing aside and set my mind on watching "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND", Sandy Welch's 1998 adaptation of his last completed novel, published in 1864-65. Needless to say, "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" proved to be a complicated tale. It featured at least three subplots - major and minor - and they all stemmed from the alleged death of the heir to a fortune created by his father, a former collector from London's rubbish.

"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" began with a solicitor named Mortimer Lightwood, who narrates the circumstances on the death of his late client and the details of the latter's will to his aunt and a group of listeners at a London society party. According to Lightwood, Mr. Harmon made his fortune from London's rubbish. The terms of his will stipulated that his fortune should go to his estranged son John, who is returning to Britain after years spent abroad. John can inherit his father's money on the condition that he marry a woman he has never met, Miss Bella Wilfer. However, Lightwood receives news that John Harmon's body has been found in the Thames River. He and his close friend Eugene Wrayburn head toward the river to identify the body. And it was this sequence that led to the following subplots:

*Mr. Harmon's employees, Nicodemus and Henrietta Boffin inherit the Harmon fortune and take Bella Wilfer as a ward to compensate for her loss, following John Harmon's "death".

*John Harmon fakes his death and assumes the identity of John Rokesmith, the Boffins' social secretary, in order to ascertain Bella Wilfer's character.

*The man who found Harmon's "body" is a waterman and scavenger named Gaffer Hexam. He is later accused of murdering "Harmon".

*While accompanying his friend, Mortimer Lightwood, to identify Harmon's body, Eugene Wrayburn meets and falls in love with Hexam's daughter, Lizzie.

*Charley Hexam, Lizzie's younger brother, has a headmaster named Bradley Headstone, who becomes romantically and violently obsessed with Lizzie.

*A ballad-seller with a wooden leg named Silas Wegg is hired by the Boffins to read for them. When he finds Harmon's will in the dust, he schemes with a taxidermist named Mr. Venus to blackmail the newly rich couple.

*Mr. and Mrs. Lammle are a society couple who married each other for money and discovered that neither had any. They eventually set their sights on the Boffins to swindle.

I have seen many movies and read many novels in which disparate subplots eventually form into one main narrative. A major example of this is the 2002 novel and its 2008 adaptation, "MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA". But I cannot recall any form of fiction in which a particular narrative divides into a series of subplots in which one barely have anything in common with another. And I must say that I found this narrative device not only original, but rather disconcerting.

The problem I mainly have with "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" is that I only enjoyed one major subplot - which dealt with Eugene Wrayburn, Lizzie Hexam and Bradley Headstone. I cannot deny that I found it very interesting and very tense, despite David Morrissey's occasional moments of histronics, when expressing Headstone's feelings for both Wrayburn and Lizzie; and actress Keeley Hawes' inability to express Lizzie's true feelings for Wrayburn until the last episode. And I suspect that director Julian Farino may have been at fault, instead of Hawes. Paul McGann's portrayal of the ambiguous Wrayburn struck me as the best performance not only in this particular subplot, but also in the entire miniseries.

Inheriting John Harmon's fortune attracted a good deal of greedy fortune hunters to the Boffins. Unfortunately, Silas Wegg's attempts to blackmail them ended on a whimper. It did not help that he spent at least two to three episodes (out of four) complaining about his lot in life and plotting with Mr. Venus. I was even less impressed with the poor and newly married Mr. and Mrs. Lammle's attempts to swindle money from the Boffins. In fact, I am still in the dark over how their attempt failed.

The subplot featuring John Harmon/Rokesmith and Bella Wilfer could have amounted to something. I found Harmon's gradual love for Bella very interesting to watch, thanks to Steven Mackintosh's subtle performance. And Anna Friel did a great job in developing Bella Wilfur from a materialistic and ambitious young woman, to one for whom love and morality meant more to her than material wealth. But the problem I have with this subplot? Bella did not learn the truth about John until some time after their wedding. Even worse, he had to resort to deception to find out whether Bella was worthy of his hand. I realize that when they first met, she was not exactly a pleasant woman. But he conducted their courtship, while deceiving her. Even worse, Bella forgave John a bit too easily, once she learned the truth. 

Aside from the excellent performances; including those from Peter Vaughn and Pam Ferris as the Boffins, Kenneth Cranham as Silas Wegg, Margaret Tyzack as the imperious Tippins, and Dominic Mafham as Mortimer Lightwood; "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" has two other virtues that I found impressive. The four-part miniseries' visual style struck me as colorful and at the same time, epic. And I believe one has to thank David Odd for his excellent. And Mike O'Neil's Victorian costumes truly blew me away. Not only did I find them beautiful, but a near accurate reflection of Britain in the 1860s.

One might believe that I dislike "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND". Trust me, I liked it. But I did not love it. I suspect that Sandy Welch and director Julian Farino did the best they could in translating Dickens' tale to the screen. Perhaps they more than did their best and that was the trouble. The 1864-65 novel is not considered among the novelist' best. "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" has yet to improve my opinion of Charles Dickens as a novelist. Perhaps a second viewing might do the job.

"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" (1998) Photo Gallery

Below are images from "OUR MUTUAL FRIEND", the 1998 television adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1865 novel. Adapted by Sandy Welch, the miniseries was directed by Julian Farino: 



"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" (1998) Photo Gallery