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| Directed by Oliver Parker; Starring Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Jeremy Northam, Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver, John Wood, Lindsay Duncan, Peter Vaughan, Jeroen Krabbé, and Benjamin Pullen |
If asked who my favorite British authors to be filmed were, I’d easily answer Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. I have been a Shakespeare fan since I first saw Zifferelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Orson Welles’ Macbeth, and it seems that everyone agrees on the merits of Shakespeare. But Wilde is a different story. I like his use of varying characteristics of the most usually carbon copy characters. The inner layering of Dorian Grey in Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey is far from the fluffy aristocrat that someone like Kate Chopin would write about. His fine writing is well represented by Oliver Parker’s film An Ideal Husband.
I was not thoroughly knowledgeable on this Wilde piece, so I found enjoyment throughout since I knew nothing of what was to happen. Proud bachelor Lord Arthur Going (Everett) must chance his beloved freedom from a wife to save the face of his best friend Sir Robert Chiltern (Northam). It seems that a woman from his past has a certain letter that would incriminate the Parliament bound Chiltern. That woman is femme fatale Laura Cheveley (Moore), who has been in love with Lord Going for years and can now use this letter to get his hand in marriage. The only person that Lord Going really loves is Robert’s sister Mabel (Driver), but agrees on a wager with Laura that could make him marry her if Robert does not do the honorable thing and denounce a plan that Laura is making him agree to liking to get the letter back.
The cast is easily the greatest asset of this film. Northam, Everett, and Blanchett (as Robert’s wife) all shine in roles I could see no one else able to play. Driver gives a really good performance considering my dislike for her usually. As for Moore, though a bit out of place, she does put up a capable show, much like that of Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions. The direction is nice and fits the motif of the film (Parker’s only other work is the highly underrated Othello with Laurence Fishburn) and the screenplay is a successful representative of Wilde’s work. Even though I was already looking forward to it, An Ideal Husband surpassed all my expectations.
