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Dorian Gray (2009)

Director: Oliver Parker

Time Out rating

Average user rating

23 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Read our report from the set of the film here

Unlike ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ or ‘An Ideal Husband’, whose Wildean theories are buried deeper beneath their stories, ‘Dorian Gray’ is a book of more explicit, often difficult ideas.

So it’s no surprise that Oliver Parker (‘St Trinians’), in his third Wilde film adaptation, has stripped out some of the more heady debates about art, beauty and the like, not least because he’s aiming for the sort of younger audience attracted by the casting of Ben Barnes (from the recent ‘Narnia’ films) as Gray. So the focus is on the surface narrative of Wilde’s novel: Gray’s ascent in London society on the arm of Lord Henry Wotton (Colin Firth) and his later descent on the arm of his own vanity as he sinisterly fails to age while a youthful portrait of himself in his attic turns into a painting of an elderly ogre.

What newcomer Toby Finlay’s sometimes daring script brings to the party is both a shift in time so that the story ends in the early 1920s and the addition of a possible redemptive love interest in the person of Emily Wotton (Rebecca Hall), Lord Henry’s daughter, and a stick with which the story tries to beat her Machiavellian father for his earlier misdeeds. These are interesting ideas, but they would work better if there was more decadence on show earlier on to nail Gray’s corruption: his initial flights of abandon in the city’s opium dens and brothels are not seedy enough and his rejection of his girlfriend Sybil (Rachel Hurd-Wood) is not as powerful or central as it should be (Hurd-Wood’s acting doesn’t help).

But things look up from the halfway point as Gray’s murder of an associate – and its dreadful effect on him – is claustrophobic enough to convince, and the film is particularly interesting when presenting Dorian as a Victorian out of time, pitching him against the Edwardian age, the car and the suffrage movement. Barnes’s ability to handle his character’s strange psychological journey is limited: he’s upstaged by the painting itself, which doesn’t just age; it putrefies, maggots and all.

Read our report from the set of the film here

Author: Dave Calhoun 2009-09-08 10:32:48

Time Out London Issue 2038, 10-16 Sept 2009

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User reviews of this film

Andrea said...

Posted on Nov 23 2009 22:57 I have not yet seen the film, but for all you people comparing this movie to the book how preposterous! A movie is a movie and a book is a book. You cannot compare the two elements for they are not the same, Now if there was a another movie of Dorian Gray you can compare those two, but hey if the movie was good give it it's props. -Andrea

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_Matt_1977_ said...

Posted on Oct 15 2009 17:05 This is a nice horror film - not a vampire film, but quite an intelligent variation on some of the themes of vampire films. Not all the anticipated twists materialise - and that's good. But some of them do, which is a shame. Still, aesthetically nice, worth watching, with an undercurrent of darkness.
...
Comparing it to recent offerings, this was better than Pandorum, but not as good as District 9.

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Cappybear said...

Posted on Oct 07 2009 18:01 Overlong costume drama with every point hammered home in case it escaped your notice, and which seems even poorer having slept on it for a night. I haven't read Wilde's novel, but preferred the 1945 film adaptation. My wife didn't think much of it either. Colin Firth tries his best and Rebecca Hall is as watchable as ever, but all in all, a turkey, and no mistake.

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klix said...

Posted on Oct 03 2009 16:47 A pretty boy country lumpkin inherits a London estate and is rapidly led astray into a seductive city of booze and fornication (hmmm looks great fun) - he never grows old but his portrait rots with maggots the more debauched his behaviour. Usual dramatic and daft ending that you can avoid this tat by staying at home.

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Zoe said...

Posted on Oct 01 2009 14:01 Truly, truly dreadful film. I can't believe I paid good money to see it! I want a refund! It is certainly the worst film I have seen for a long time. The script shows none of the subtleties or wit of Oscar Wilde's novel, Ben Barnes execells himself at being more wooden than Keanu Reeves and Nickolas Cage put together, in fact the whole casting is atrocious and there aren't even decent sets or costumes to distract you from it all. The overall look of the film is set by what appears to be a significant lack of budget despite what some may say a decent cast. To be fair most of the cast I have seen produce decent work, so one can only blame the director for a film that looks more like a bad student film than a big budget 'blockbuster'. The costumes especially rankled me - complete lack of historical accuracy (Ben Barnes wanders around for a good amount of time wearing a cravat that looks suspiciously like a scarf from topman) and the overall creations are ugly, ungainly and ill fitting. The sex scenes are laughable, and in most cases pretty repulsive. After 45 minutes my boyfriend and I could take no more and walked out. Horrifyingly bad film, Oscar Wilde will be spinning in his grave.

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Gillian said...

Posted on Sep 30 2009 20:33 really enjoyed this the music made it creepy and the actors were great, shocking sex scenes but loved it. Colin Firth was a rascal but a good one and the ending kept me guessing look forward to the dvd in the near future to watch this again well done to the cast I say

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Diane said...

Posted on Sep 28 2009 18:17 Absolute nonsense! The costumes were the best thing about it, and not all of those were great.

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Adam said...

Posted on Sep 28 2009 17:38 I am wondering if people saw the same film as me. Or had ever seen a film before. This was truly, truly dreadful: the sets were naff, the acting (with the exception of Ms Hall) risible, and the story was almost totally unrelated to the novel (the updating to the 20s and creation of the Rebecca Hall character just didn't work at all). Even the portrait didn't age: the canvas mouldered in a CGI way. The 'dramatic' train accident actually had people laughing in my cinema. The scenes of 'debauchery' were your average middle-aged man's fantasy, showing the director's limited imagination. So bad it made me angry. Everyone involved should hang their heads in shame. My nomination for the turkey of the year so far (and I've seen the Harry Potter movie too!) Avoid, avoid, avoid!

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Graham said...

Posted on Sep 27 2009 18:09 Keswick (Cunbria) only has one small, great little cinema and by the time I could get there last night, Dorian Gray was the only film I could fit in. A quick internet search for reviews (including this one) led me to sit down with very low expectations, particularly from Ben Barnes. But guess what - neither Ben Barnes nor the film generally are anything like as bad as some reviewers would have you believe. To cut a long story short, 7 out of 10, with Colin Firth and Rebecca Hall in particular raising the bar, but Ben Barnes can also pick up his pay cheque without a trace of guilt - a very decent performance from him too.

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Mary said...

Posted on Sep 27 2009 13:03 I haven't seen more than the trailer, so can't review the film. But just wish to comment that I lost the desire to watch it from the still above alone. Ben Barnes has a baddie-expression, he 'looks' the inner depraved state of Dorian - but the whole point was that the face and eyes keep the innocent country boy expression. Wilde's story is not at all just about 'eternal youth'. It is (among others) about an ongoing power to seduce by innocence. Dorian Gray should have had an angelic look and charisma. This guy looks more like a vampire, a heartless person easy to recognizr as such a mile away. Down the drain.

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Helen said...

Posted on Sep 24 2009 16:58 This film was dark and angsty, giving a stark contrast between happeir times. Will keep you thinking about it for hours after!

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mary said...

Posted on Sep 23 2009 17:09 loved the period drama side - enjoyed Colin Firth's performance

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Bob Leslie said...

Posted on Sep 19 2009 01:38 Unlike some reviewers, I found no fault in Ben Barnes' acting, Chaplin was excellent, and Colin Firth splendidly convincing as a "baddie". The dialogue was well up to scratch too. It was the direction that let the whole thing down. The heavy-handed way we were asked to believe that an Egyptian cigarette and a glass of gin were enough to turn a well-intentioned lad up from the country into a committed debauchee in record time was simplistic and pointlessly pedantic; the subway chase was straight out of American Werewolf; and the way the portrait turned into the janitor from Hogwarts on a bad day was frankly risible. Oscar deserves better than this.

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Charlie said...

Posted on Sep 18 2009 14:16 Oscar Wilde's novel is a work of pure literary genius, however this film is a monstrosity. The acting was terrible (Rachel Hurd-Wood as Sibyl Vane was exceptionally poor), the script was corny, the plot was almost completely unrelated to the original story, there was no character development or explanation as to character relationships, the time periods were not at al faithful to the novel, and the sole point of this film seemed to be showing as many sex-scenes as possible. A huge disappointment; Wilde must be turning in his grave

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kerouac said...

Posted on Sep 17 2009 12:16 Interesting adaptation of Wilde's only novel

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