Wilde's An Ideal Husband - on Film
Rupert Everett Stars in A Film of Oscar Wilde's Comedy
Oct 14, 2007
Before Rupert Everett made the fantastic 2002 version of The Importance of Being Earnest with Colin Firth, he starred in another Oscar Wilde adaptation: An Ideal Husband. In it he plays Lord Goring, the womanizing bachelor who is best friends with the rising political star Sir Arthur Chiltern (Jeremy Northam.) Chiltern is renowned for his integrity, his principled attitude to public life, and his “golden couple” status with his beautiful bluestocking wife Lady Chiltern (Cate Blanchett)
The Past’s Presence
The smooth surface of both men’s lives hide cross-currents, however. Despite Lord Goring’s series of casual flings, and the is a hint of sexual tension between him and Lady Chiltern, he is becoming increasingly drawn to Chiltern’s younger sister Mabel. The London season brings Mrs Cheveley, an old flame of Goring’s, to one of the Chilterns’ fashionable parties. She asks for a private audience with Lord Chiltern and reveals that she has in her possession a letter he wrote many years ago as a young political secretary, selling cabinet secrets to a financier to personal gain. Her price for its return is Chiltern’s public support for an Argentine Canal scheme, a project he knows is a complete swindle. That, however, is only the beginning of the complications...
A Hundred Years On
This production of An Ideal Husband handles a complex plot with a light touch; the accusations and misunderstandings are dramatic and comic in the right places, without any accidental toppling over into farce. It starts at an advantage over Wilde’s famous and constantly-produced The Importance of Being Earnest, since the vast majority of the film’s audience won’t know the plot, or the jokes, in advance. Some of the “paradoxical” quips are a bit unwieldy, but Rupert Everett supplies amusing faces or reactions when the gags have lost some of their edge in the intervening century.
A Nearly Ideal Production
Northam and Blanchett are quite touching as the Chilterns, and their relationship brings out the questions Wilde poses about making ideals of real people. Minnie Driver gives a practised performance as an inexperienced young woman who’d rather not be, and is well contrasted with Julianne Moore as the poisonous and sexy Mrs. Cheveley. There is a definite “costume drama” feel to the production, which boasts a luxuriant patisserie of a set and plenty of lavish costumes, but the action is genuinely engaging, and very rarely does it have to fall back on eye-candy and arch murmurs to be entertaining.
