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13. Dorian Gray (2009), dir. Oliver Parker
Monday, 14 September 2009 21:11Seen at the Cottage Road cinema with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ms_siobhan
I must admit that I went to see this with a kind of train-wreck mentality. From what I'd seen on trailers and posters, it looked destined to be pretty awful - a CGI-heavy Gothic horror fest with little subtlety and no resemblance to the book beyond the title. I was braced for something which was to Wilde's Dorian Gray as the film Van Helsing was to Stoker's Dracula. But I went all the same, because somehow I just couldn't resist seeing for myself how bad it was going to be.
And in that I was sorely disappointed. It isn't perfect by any means -ms_siobhan and I agreed on the way home that there were points at which they had gone slightly overboard with the CGI, especially in the final scenes. But it was a lot better than I had been expecting. It had subtlety and structure and clever thematic allusions, and succeeded in bringing out the essential character of Wilde's book while at the same time bringing its own contributions to the table. In short, I think it has been mis-marketed, and actually if you like Wilde's novel and like dark and grungy modern visions of Victorian depravity (think Sweeney Todd), you will probably like this.
( OK, the rest is going to be spoilerific )
There's a lot there, then - more, in fact, than I'd intended to write when I sat down to do this review! It's just a pity that Parker occasionally let himself get just a little carried away with the CGI effects - particularly when 95% of the way the always-tricky issue of whether or how to show the picture itself was actually handled quite cleverly and subtly, and it was only that rogue 5% that over-egged the pudding. With only a very little editing to trim out the worst excesses, it would be a really brilliant film - and as it is, I'm glad I saw it.
Click here to view this entry with minimal formatting.
ms_siobhanI must admit that I went to see this with a kind of train-wreck mentality. From what I'd seen on trailers and posters, it looked destined to be pretty awful - a CGI-heavy Gothic horror fest with little subtlety and no resemblance to the book beyond the title. I was braced for something which was to Wilde's Dorian Gray as the film Van Helsing was to Stoker's Dracula. But I went all the same, because somehow I just couldn't resist seeing for myself how bad it was going to be.
And in that I was sorely disappointed. It isn't perfect by any means -
ms_siobhan and I agreed on the way home that there were points at which they had gone slightly overboard with the CGI, especially in the final scenes. But it was a lot better than I had been expecting. It had subtlety and structure and clever thematic allusions, and succeeded in bringing out the essential character of Wilde's book while at the same time bringing its own contributions to the table. In short, I think it has been mis-marketed, and actually if you like Wilde's novel and like dark and grungy modern visions of Victorian depravity (think Sweeney Todd), you will probably like this.( OK, the rest is going to be spoilerific )
There's a lot there, then - more, in fact, than I'd intended to write when I sat down to do this review! It's just a pity that Parker occasionally let himself get just a little carried away with the CGI effects - particularly when 95% of the way the always-tricky issue of whether or how to show the picture itself was actually handled quite cleverly and subtly, and it was only that rogue 5% that over-egged the pudding. With only a very little editing to trim out the worst excesses, it would be a really brilliant film - and as it is, I'm glad I saw it.
Click here to view this entry with minimal formatting.
