Adapted from the famous novel by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Oliver Parker’s Portrait of Dorian Gray is a modern adaptation of one of the writer’s greatest achievements. With its central themes of hedonism, youthism, hypocrisy and vanity, this film attempts to reproduce the story of Irish dandy Oscar Wilde as accurately as possible. A rather successful film, with impeccable acting!
Dorian Gray, a handsome young man, decides to pose for his painter friend to paint his portrait. Very vain and obsessed with his own image, Gray is fascinated by the result of the painting: so much so, that he feels an irrational jealousy for the representation of himself.
He then met Lord Henry. The latter introduces him to hedonism, vanity and the culture of youthism. Gray soon embraced his theories, vowing never to grow old:“If the picture could change, I’d stay what I am!
His wish comes true: Gray retains her beauty and youth, while the painting presents a character who ages in her place throughout her life. But Gray multiplies his crimes and sins, causing the suicide of his future wife, murdering his painter friend, and living in fear that his secret will be discovered. His picture then gradually changes, depicting an abject, vain, monstrous being, with gnawed, bloody skin…
After several years of turmoil, Dorian Gray finally turns against the painting and stabs it with a knife… The latter dies in the guise of a hideous old man, while the painting is restored to its original state…
It’s hard to take on a literary behemoth like The Portrait of Dorian Gray! Wilde’s story has been retold many times in the past, but in the long run it lost all its flavor and bite, distorted by a cinema that was sometimes too smooth and Hollywood-like…
But let’s be reassured: Oliver Parker does quite well under the circumstances: his film reflects Wilde’s central themes with the utmost accuracy, and thus centers its story around the duality of the human soul, its perversions, and its contradictions. Man is corrupted by his constant quest for pleasure, beauty and youthfulness, with a single obsession in mind: to conceal his true nature from others.
In this way, Dorian Gray becomes a monster without ugliness, whose traces of these perversions are preciously hidden under the features of a living painting. Gray hides not only from others, but also from himself, trying to escape his own reality and his own actions… causing his own self-destruction.
Colin Firth’s performance is particularly convincing, as is that of Ben Barnes, who plays a remarkable Dorian Gray.
3.83/5 (6 votes)
