THE HAPPY PRINCE (15) ★★★ ★★
TAKING its title from a short story for children by Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince is an elegiac account of the final years of the Irish playwright and poet following his incarceration for gross indecency.
The film is a passion project for director, writer and lead actor Rupert Everett, and his connection to his subject is evident in a compelling performance that doesn’t shy away from its subjects flaws during his French exile.
We meet Wilde (Everett) after his release from Reading Gaol, on the brink of financial ruin. His ex-wife Constance (Emily Watson) grants him an allowance on the understanding he sever all ties to the manipulative object of his downfall, Lord Alfred Douglas aka Bosie (Colin Morgan). Wilde cannot resist and is duly cut off. Friends Reggie Turner (Colin Firth) and Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas) try in vain to help as he sinks into a mire of misery.
Racked with illness, the playwright seeks refuge with two resourceful street waifs. In return, Wilde enchants his hosts with passages from The Happy Prince as death beckons.
The Happy Prince wades artfully through the despair of Wilde’s exile, interspersed with flashbacks. Everett’s anguished face haunts almost every frame, but there are strong supporting performances from Thomas and Morgan. The script is peppered with bon mots from a man, whose great sin was to be afflicted by “the love that dare not speak its name”. It took almost 120 years for Wilde to be granted a posthumous pardon. Therein lies true shame.