An Ideal Husband Part 3, or "A happy ending after all"

You may recall that the movie version of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" is a terrible adaptation, apart from the costumes. Not satisfied, and trying to get the taste out my mouth, I found an old tape of the 1947 version at a marvelous video store that has that sort of thing (tapes, I mean). Even with the poor image quality, muddy sound, and occasional suspenseful moments where it looked like the tape might break, it was a much better viewing experience, because it was a much better movie.

Basically, it was the play. They moved a few scenes and greatly condensed most of the ending, but it held up well. Lord Goring was charming, Mrs. Cheveley was slimy, and the other characters were quite good as well. I liked Miss Mabel, and unlike in the other version, they left her a funny, clever, and minor character. I hate when screenwriters feel the need to make minor female characters show up all over the story and take over (Arwen). But I digress.

I only had a couple of problems with it. There are spoilers in here, so go read the play. I've turned them a parchmenty yellow color, so you can highlight them and read if you want. First, the tremendous condensation of the ending left almost no time for the charming scenes between Lord Goring and Mabel. Her impatience to get Goring to propose to her, and her scolding of him, is so funny in the play, and it was largely left out. I suppose that's minor, but still...

The other problem is also pretty minor, but I find it annoying. Here's a bunch of spoilers. In the play, Lady Chiltern sends Goring a letter asking his help, which Mrs. Cheveley finds, and being a bad person herself, assumes meant she was having an affair with him. After Goring makes Mrs. Cheveley give him the other letter she has, she reveals she has pocketed Lady Chiltern's letter, and runs off. The ending is rather suspenseful because just when Sir Chiltern decides to stick to his guns, and Lord Goring has succeeded in keeping his past a secret, Mrs. Cheveley is scheming away to ruin the Chilterns' marriage again. In both movies, they have Mrs. Cheveley keep Lady Chiltern's letter a secret, and tell Lord Goring she has it after they all go to watch Sir Chiltern give his speech to Parliament (not in the play). While this is a more simple "good guys think they're safe but then the villain has one last trick" twist, I like the extra suspense of knowing her scheme the whole time, and hoping their success won't be ruined, and wondering how they'll get out of it. It works OK either way, but I like the play better. Also, showing the speech in Parliament is boring! It works fine in the play where it cuts to them back at home talking about what a great speech it was, while the audience knows the trouble that the letter could still bring.

Overall, though, it's a pretty good adaptation, and a pretty good movie.

An Ideal Husband Part 2

A few posts ago I wrote about Oscar Wilde's play "An Ideal Husband", which is one of my favorite plays, although I have never seen it performed, because it's not that famous. I wanted to see it fleshed out somehow.

So I finally bit the bullet and rented the DVD of "An Ideal Husband", the one with Rupert Everett. I was reluctant to check out this version because I read so many bad reviews of it, but someone told me she liked Rupert Everett's performance as Lord Goring, and that it was a good movie. I suppose it was an OK movie, as long you have not read the play. I suppose Rupert Everett was good, as long as you don't know about Lord Goring. I suppose I should start at the beginning.

There were some good things about this film. The costumes were beautiful, as were the sets. As a production designer and a fan of Victorian fashion, this was a real treat. Some of the performances were very good, especially Kate Blanchett, but then again, she's always good.

Rupert Everett was good too, just as a performance, but not necessarily the way I picture Lord Goring. I liked a couple of parts where he gets philosophical and passionate, and yet still tries to maintain his airhead dandyish facade, even though it's painful, and he needs his friends to listen to him. However, other than that, I think he was miscast. For one thing, Lord Goring is supposed to possess an easy grace and disarming wit that is effortless, and it's pleasantly surprising and sort of thrilling when he turns he turns out to be intelligent and morally upright. It seemed more like he was trying too hard to seem frivolous, and he was sort of brooding. It's hard to put my finger on it, but he didn't seem very Lord Goring-like.

The biggest problem was simply the adaptation. Half the play wasn't in the movie, which is typical, but half the movie wasn't in the play, which is far worse! During the entire second half of the film, one thought kept going through my mind: "Not in the play!" If you took a drink every time a line of dialogue (or even an entire conversation) was not in the play, you wouldn't last halfway through the film, and the first half was relatively faithful. Not only was it annoying to not see most of my favorite lines and exchanges, but some of the changes were to actual themes and plot, and to the characters' motivations. I won't give any spoilers, but let's just say it was very shallow compared to the play, and many of the plot twists toward the end were over-explained, showing the screenwriters' apparent contempt for the audience's intelligence, or else rewritten, showing their apparent contempt for Oscar Wilde.

An Ideal Husband

I just read the play "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde, and I believe it may be my favorite play! (Aside from "Arms and the Man" and "Arsenic and Old Lace") I have heard people say it is not Wilde's wittiest play, but somehow I don't think it was supposed to be. I wish people wouldn't dismiss him as a silly quote-factory. As "An Ideal Husband" and "Picture of Dorian Gray" reveal, he actually had an interesting view of morality that went far beyond just contradicting society's expectations. His emphasis was on free will, charity, forgiveness, and love, and also what happens when one is denied (or denies oneself) those things. Also on fashion and wittiness. Probably about half of Dorian Gray is descriptions of people's clothes and home furnishings.

Anyway, back to the play. It has the coolest speechifying villain. She's so evil. It also has the most wonderful hero, Lord Goring. He's a dandy who is the shame of his father and is basically idle and frivolous, yet he is pretty much the only character with a real understanding of morality and the guts to act on it. He's also adorable when he plays the airhead. It's actually a very suspensful little play. And it does have it's fair share of witticisms and jabs at Victorian culture, but it's no "Importance of Being Earnest"