In 1882, famed writer Oscar Wilde (Stephen Fry) visits America. He returns to England to marry Constance Lloyd (Jennifer Ehle) to the approval of his mother (Vanessa Redgrave). He begins a sexual affair with his friend Robbie Ross (Michael Sheen) and has a family with Constance. Then he falls for the dashing, self-indulgent Lord Alfred Douglas (Jude Law).Bosie is dislikable. In short, he's a rich annoying brat. The only person less likable is his father. It makes the relationship unappealing. The movie could have portrayed it as a destructive obsession. That would be more epic. The movie needs to foreshadow the dire consequences by presenting a darker attitude of the day. His homosexuality is mostly a secret but those who know seems to tolerate it. It is missing the dangerous edge until the arrival of the father halfway into it. Overall, it is elevated by the performance of Fry but it needs more danger in the first half. Fry's calm demeanor doesn't project danger. His relationship isn't appealing. It could have been more intensity but Fry is good.

I've seen Oscar Wilde portrayed on film before. I remember Robert Morley and also Peter Finch. They both provided inklings into the heart and mind of of one of the literary giants of the 19th Century. But one aspect of the tragedy, because, let's face it, it is a tragedy. His relationship with Alfred Douglas that in a very direct way, will mark his destiny. It was so difficult to believe that Peter Finch's Wilde will go to war for someone like John Frazer's Bosie. Good looking yes but devoid of the most important element, if you are going to believe in the power that Bosie had over Wilde. Finch and Frazer have the sexual chemistry of two slices of white bread but here, in this 1997 Wilde with Stephen Fry in the title role the mystery is revealed, Jude Law makes the whole thing totally believable. The desire he inspires we see in Oscar Wilde's eyes. Stephen Fry is another Humbert Humbert to Jude Law's Lolita. Amazing when the most incomprehensible action becomes totally understandable in the face of an actor. That alone, makes this Wilde my favorite.

We yield to no one in our appreciation of Stephen Fry (except maybe for that woman who sings the song on YouTube about having his baby), but this tastefully appointed biopic was a bit of a letdown. Fry as Wilde sails serenely through the opening scenes, wowing a crowd of shirtless miners in Colorado, wedding a beautiful young admirer, then, suddenly squeamish after the birth of their second child, allowing himself to be seduced by another young, male admirer (Michael Sheen, the guy who always plays Tony Blair), trading up to Ioan Gruffud, then to JLaw himself, as Bosie. Fry and Law may have seemed like strong, perhaps inevitable, casting choices, but neither one brings much intensity to his role, and their relationship seems oddly uninvolving—more like tea with a favorite uncle than "feasting with panthers," in Wilde's famous phrase. A few sparks fly when Tom Wilkinson looms up, in a fine nutball turn, as Bosie's father, the Marquess of Queensbury, but the pace slackens again in the crucial courtroom scenes, and we had to resort to Wikipedia to find out why the MoQ thought that Bosie's brother Frank was getting "buggered by that Jew Rosebery" and what Frank's (alleged) suicide had to do with Wilde's disastrous decision to prosecute the marquess for libel. Jennifer Ehle, as the almost-all-forgiving Constance Wilde, Vanessa Redgrave and Zoë Wanamaker don't have much to do besides show up for their costume fittings; Orlando Bloom, who gets one brief scene as a cheeky hustler, looks great in a bowler hat, though I pity the LotR fans who got the DVD from Netflix because they saw his name in the cast list.

(Some Spoilers) Even though the Irish born Oscar Wilde, Stephen Fry, was one of the most celebrated men of letters, in his poetry short stories as well as a playwright, during the British Victorian Age it was the extremely prudish and restrictive ideas of that era in European History that in the end destroyed him.In the film "Wilde" we see a vibrant and full of life Oscar Wilde" brought down not really by his own in your face sexual conduct, in his homosexuality, but by those young men that he was sexually involved with. It all started out so innocently in Oscar getting involved with young and gay Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, Jude Law, who was anything but discreet about his relationship with Oscar. It's when Bosie's father the ultra macho and "fists of fury" the Marquess of Queensberry, Tom Wilkinson, found out that his son was both gay-as if he didn't know by then-and having an affair with Oscar that he decided to destroy Oscar's literary career as well has his life. Oscar at first just ignored the vulgar and load mouth Lord Queensberry but when finally forced to fight back by using his both sharp and stinging wit, like a left jab, and overwhelming intelligence, like a combination straight right and left hook,to keep Lord Queensberry and his foul and guttural language directed towards him at bay Oscar thus made him look like the unsavory and low class fool and ignoramus that he really was.It's was when Bosie, who hated his father for driving his younger bother to suicide and his mom into an insane asylum, goaded Oscar to take his father to court for insulting him by calling Oscar a "queer" and "sodomite" in public that sealed his fate as well as end his brilliant career as a giant in the history of English Literature. There were just too many skeletons,live as well as dead, in Oscar's closet to prove Lord Queensberry's accusations about his secret life, Oscar was in fact married with two young boys at the time, to be absolutely true. Put on trial, after Lord Queensbery was found innocent, for acts of gross indecency Oscar's witty and brilliant defense of his actions were not enough to convince a jury get him off. Convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor at Reading Prison Oscar, who never as much as picked up anything as heavy as a book in his entire life, was subjected to such inhuman treatment by working on a treadmill for six hours at a stretch, together with his incurable syphilis, that he eventually fell completely to pieces.Finally released from prison, after serving his two year sentence, Oscar ended up broke and alone with his faithful wife, who swore she'll never leave him, Constance, Jennifer Ehle, dying at an early age and his two sons, with the court declaring Oscar an unfit parent, taken way from him. Forced to flee England Oscar, now calling himself Sabastian Melmoth, died broke and forgotten to everyone but his closest friends and family members in Paris France on November 30, 1900. Just six weeks after his 46th birthday.Truly a giant of his times, as well as now, Oscar Wilde was a victim of the same kinds of ignorance and indifference that we have even among us now in people not trying or caring to understand those that are somewhat different-racially religiously or sexually-then themselves. We in fact see in the movie that homosexuality in Victorian England was wide spread and in many cases openly exhibited with very little punishment to those involved in it. It was that the flamboyant and outspoken Oscar Wilde stuck out like a sore thumb and took his sexuality as a badge of honor not a curse that made him a target for persons like Lord Queensberry, who he accused Oscar of turning his pansy son Bosie into a sissy, to take pot shots on. In the end it was Oscar's pride self righteous as well as self respect that had him take Lord Queensbery on that unfortunately ended up destroying him!