National Review, June 2nd, 1998
There have been two previous films about Oscar Wilde. In the 1959 Oscar Wilde, Robert Morley re-created a stage performance, amusingly but without much charisma. In the 1960 The Trials of Oscar Wilde, Peter Finch was a superb Wilde and John Frazer a very fine Alfred Douglas. Neither film covered sufficient ground. Wilde, written by the gifted Julian Mitchell and directed by Brian Gilbert, whose Tom and Viv (about T. S. Eliot) was less than compelling, tries to go farther and deeper, but doesn't quite come off, either.
There is an unfortunate Masterpiece Theatre aura about Wilde, which, it m...
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