Rupert Everett directs and stars in 'The Happy Prince', in which he depicts the last days of Oscar Wilde. His Wilde is, in fact, not particularly happy; socially ruined and financially impoverished following his imprisonment for homosexuality, coming to terms with the faithlessness of his lover Bosie, and facing more generally the passage of his stardom and the loss of his stage. Wilde comes across as neither falsely heroic nor wholly pathetic, but rather human, albeit clearly with an outsized need to be adored. The movie somewhat lacks plot, and its whole story could just be a coda to a lifelong biopic whose main drama would end where 'The Happy Prince' begins; but Everett's performance is a good one, and the world we see is a convincing one.
Review of The Happy Prince
