"And the Oscar goes to...."

I'm sorry but that was unavoidable having seen "The Happy Prince" yesterday.

I find it shocking that in the 1890's Oscar Wilde should find himself imprisoned for loving another man. Wilde was a phenomenon - witty, clever, a brilliant playwright and story teller but reckless, it could be called fearlessness. He wrote "The Happy Prince" which I find unable to read without holding back my tears.

So it was with some irony and a great deal of homage that Rupert Everett's film about Wilde's downward spiral after his release from prison should have that title.

I know very little about Rupert Everett. I was aware of him in the 1980's as a young, handsome actor in "Another Country" but after that he didn't register. Clearly I have missed a great deal in the intervening years if this film and his performance is anything to go by.

It's not that after being released from prison and fleeing to France Wilde was left penniless and friendless. He wasn't - his friend and lover Robbie Ross, and Reggie Turner got him a new identity, raised funds to see him through and new writing commissions. Yet this man who had the grandest thoughts and ideals, rejected these loyal,loyal friends, insulted them and turned to his nemesis
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas "Bosie". Spending a disastrous time in Naples and after returning to Paris passed what life was left to him, drunk, debauched, begging and captivating. In Paris he found friendship, admiration and love from those in the gutter. I like to think that despite the squalor and poverty he was happier there than when in his pomp he was lionised by London society.

That adoration, fame and social notoriety was taken from him and he was shunned and imprisoned. Wilde was a sensitive man whose genius, his verbal brilliance shielded him. When he was successful it acted as a glittering facade dazzling all who came near him. In his purgatory this sensitive man strove with all his might to maintain his dignity, his sanity, his sense of who he was, through his wit and his charm.

So onto the film. For me, Everett brought the man alive. I got angry at his arrogance, his stupidity, his carelessness, his genius. There are many memorable scenes. Bosie's panic at a rat loose in the faded splendour of the Neapolitan let. The melting scene where Oscar is telling the story of "The Happy Prince" to the two Parisian waifs , intercut with that of  his own two boys. When being transferred to Reading Jail being spat on at Clapham Junction station by "joe public". The scene when he and his friends were chased by a gang of homo hating upper class yobs in Italy. Also the scenes of homosexuality - in turn sexual, touching and dispairing.  I was with him when he was conviviality itself, when he could entrance. delight and hold all in rapture at his storytelling. The scenes in the Parisian bars where he would sing and drink until he had to be carried home - too many times. The final days - the operation, the beautiful, compassionate last rites -  the Irish priest who forgivingly ministered on Wilde’s death bed, while all his remaining well-wishers clustered around.

Wilde's treatment of his wife Constance was hideous. She loved him despite everything yet that wasn't enough. He humiliated her by going back to Bosie. Insanity! Madness! Lust!
He never saw her or his two boys again.

I was screaming "You stupid fucking prick. You talk to talk "Yet each man kills the thing he loves" and you walk the fucking walk." It's a question I don't want to ask "Did you only ever think about yourself?"

 This man so endowed, so blessed buggered himself right royally. Yet, I don't think he minded. Which is strange since at times he could be such a self pitying arsehole!

I only wish I had known the man. Thank you Rupert Everett for allowing me to glimpse him.

Go see the film.