Screener Review - Dorian Gray

Ghost Writer: Ann Stieglitz

Review of Dorian Gray (Momentum Pictures, Ealing Studios) 26 August 2009- OHG EXCLUSIVE! Link but please do not repost.

*SPOILER WARNING*

4 out of 5 shovels as a film
31/2 out of 5 shovels as an adaptation

From the moment the titles and credits opened, the mood of disintegration and renewal was set. As the gleaming white letters of each actor's name emerged, so the black, crackling, splintering, pimpled background slowly disappeared, creating a sense of eeriness - you knew you were in for a neo-Gothic treat.

Dorian Gray is directed by Oliver Parker and produced by Barnaby Thompson, and is an Ealing Studios, Alliance Films and UK Film Council production of a Fragile Film in association with Aramid Entertainment and Prescience. Parker and Thompson have known each other for a long time, collaborating, for instance, on St. Trinian's.

The film did not open gently, like the book, where Basil Hallward, the painter, and Lord Wotton are discussing art and beauty whilst languidly relaxing in the summer garden: it began with Dorian Gray's introduction, by the painter, Basil, (played admirably by Ben Chaplin), into the society he was to seduce - from pretty girls to ageing dowagers. His pale skin and dark hair and features capture the attention of the crowd, and especially that of the painter's friend, Lord Wotton, who sidles up to Dorian Gray, with a suggestive air and a lewd gleam in his eye as he espies his next innocent and naive victim.

Although Dorian Gray is supposed to be blond and blue eyed (a significant sign of 19th century 'purity', which Oscar Wilde so cleverly lets disintegrate - much as colonialism disintegrates), I felt that Ben Barnes' good looks were compelling, if not overwhelming. There may be a generational gap here - and of course, my impartiality as far as Colin Firth is concerned! But I did feel that Colin Firth, as Lord Wotton, stole the show, and without him, the film would collapse, I believe. Once again, he was so 'immersed' in this plum role, playing totally against type, that he made the Lord both wicked and sly, and you felt, rather than saw, how his internal desires were about lust and lewd perversions of all kinds - yet he was a voyeur, not a participant. Colin's performance holds the film together, and purists may not like the fact that a daughter was introduced for him, but I felt that this was a very good idea for a modern audience - and gave him a chance to show his vulnerability as he and his daughter grew older.

We were given a press pack - although without photos - with an extensive interview by Colin in which he picks up the above point:

"In the book Henry doesn't really change - he's the only character who doesn't go on one of these journeys of discovery, what we like to call the arc. I think we've altered that a little in this story by giving him a daughter - the stakes change and because of this, his character has to change (...) it makes him vulnerable (...)"

So, as Lord Wotton ages - and goodness me, Colin Firth as you have never seen him - his face taking on all the liver spots of age and his hair receding, so his demeanour changes as does the audience's view of him. Colin manages to convey this so subtly, that one doesn't even realise it - I have always said, he is a master of expressing repression!

Of course, the Faustian pact Dorian Gray makes, instigated by Lord Wotton, to remain forever young and beautiful, leads him to crossing every line, and murder and mayhem ensue. It begins with Dorian falling in love with a slight, beautiful red-head (as in the present series of Desperate Romantics) young girl, Sybil Vane, played by Rachel Hurd-Wood, whose suicide as a result of Dorian's rejection, was to haunt him all his life. But as the mayhem ensues, so the fourth protagonist in the film - the painting - plays a key role in teasing the audience. Initially, we see how the painting changes, but thereafter it is kept out of view, and we only hear the groans and moans of old age coming from behind the door in the attic (oh, I love these attics! What dark mysteries loiter there!). The ending is quite spectacular, with the filmmakers using CGI very effectively and scarily.

The exploding baroque interiors, with their scenes of opium filled orgies are quickly edited, filmed from all angles, giving one a real sense of debauchery, with Ben Barnes convincingly fulfilling the object of every woman's lust and fascination. The settings and locations - from these baroque interiors to the neo-classical townscape of London - were superb and stunningly filmed. I loved the way the 19th century neo-classical columns seemed so huge, dwarfing people at times, and at one point, they run down the stairs near the ICA, Carlton Terrace, reminding me of Eisenstein's film, where the pram falls down the stairs. In the dark pub and club interiors, with their peeling walls, and the peeling faces of the drunk and sick, there were echoes of other films for me, from German Expressionism (Dr. Caligari) to the black and white films of Edgar Allen Poe. Perhaps the darkness of the Gothic was expressed best for me, when Dorian Gray's eyes became so dark as to seem to be filled with the blackness of blood. All we needed, really, to make him as much a cult figure as Robert Pattinson (Twilight), was for him to don a cloak and grow fangs - what a vampire he would be, sucking out the very blood of society around him!

Other locations were interesting for me - Basildon Park, which featured in the film of Pride and Prejudice, and Sir Christopher Wren's magnificent baroque Royal Naval College at Greenwich, whose colonnades provided such a dramatic backdrop. There was a stunning scene in Highgate Cemetery - and Chiswick Town Hall featured too. But I loved the reconstructed attic - so claustrophobic you wanted to choke - at Ealing studios, as well as the London Underground scene, where the whoosh of the train made me jump and my heart pound!

The screenplay was taut - the first for writer, Toby Finlay - but where Oscar Wilde expends time explaining, here we have the wonderful 'show, don't tell', where the camera can tell us in an instant something a writer tells in many pages. And I enjoyed the music, too, scored and arranged by Charlie Mole, whose work ranges from the theme to St Trinian's to the BBC adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank.

So, the male leads were the important roles in the film, with the women playing the foil to their desires. But we meet again Emilia Fox (a small role as Lord Wotton's wife) and Caroline Goodall, who appeared in SLOW, as well as classical female actors, like Fiona Shaw (magnificent!). Rebecca Hall, who plays Lord Wotton's daughter, has a face that is not easily forgotten (I saw her on tv in Stephen Poliakoff's Joe's Palace), and she bridged the time span well, appearing as a young suffragette.

It was so obvious that Colin Firth was relishing his role, and I do wish more people would appreciate the subtleties of his performances, like that in Genova. He surely deserves, not only a retrospective of his films, at either the NFT, or on television, but an appropriate award. This performance surely deserves a BAFTA? I like the way he says:

"I'm drawn to characters that are hard to pin down. (...) There's a big mystery to him (Lord Wotton). One could continue to ask the question about why he behaves the way he does, about his continuing fascination with Dorian which provides an opportunity for a cruel game: is there some kind of paternal love there? Some kind of sexual love there? I actually think all of those elements are there. He destroys Dorian completely - it's Henry who initiates the process of Dorian's self-destruction by proxy. I think there's a kind of self-loathing that he projects."

Colin Firth shows himself to be both an intelligent, insightful actor, as well as one who knows how to harness his instincts to project this complex and ambivalent character onto the screen. I found him a joy to watch - yet have never before NOT fancied him so much!

I loved the film, it was great fun, and I can't wait to see it again on the 9/9/09!!! (What is that upside down?) Oh, if only he would be there, at the National Film Theatre!

Oh, and by the way, we - the audience - all clapped!

IN CINEMAS 9.9.09 - Official Site

For more reviews, please check out: Dorian Gray Movie Reviews.
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