UK’s new biopic on Oscar Wilde acclaimed by author’s grandson

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A new biopic of the UK’s master of witty epigrams Oscar Wilde, “The Happy Prince,” has won the hearts of many film critics after its recent premiere across the country, before hitting the screens nationwide on June 15.

Prominent among those who was wowed by the film was Merlin Holland, Wilde’s only grandchild and an expert on the writer. Holland was quoted by the Guardian as saying that he found himself “terribly moved by it.”

The film, which adopted the same title as Wilde’s classic work for children, was a production of Rupert Everett, who was widely known for his role in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” with Julia Roberts.

A still from film "The Happy Prince" by Rupert Everett. /Photo via douban.com

Rupert, who once claimed that Wilde was “a patron saint figure” and “a Christ figure” for him, not only starred in the movie, playing the author in his last few years, but also wrote, directed and produced the film.

It is not his first performance in a film related to the British author, though. He also starred in the 2002 film “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “An Ideal Husband” in 1999, and got his second Golden Globe nomination for the latter.

He was in the play “The Judas Kiss” in 2012, which was adapted from Oscar Wilde’s scandal and disgrace, for which he was praised by the Hollywood Reporter as deserving “to become legendary.”

“The Happy Prince” focuses on Oscar Wilde’s final years of exile, after he was put on trial and imprisoned for his love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, during a time when gay marriage was still considered illegal in the UK. Wilde died in poverty in France at the age of 46.

File of Edwin Thomas, Rupert Everett and Emily Watson attend the "The Happy Prince" premiere during the 68th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin. /VCG Photo

It was not the first time the author’s life was incarnated in a biopic. There are also Stephen Fry’s film “Wilde” in 1997 and Ken Hughes’s “The Trials of Oscar Wilde” in 1960. However, Holland said that Everett’s film was the best one.

“Fry’s was very intellectual, which would figure with Stephen’s character. Rupert’s is terribly emotional,” Holland told the Guardian. “In Oscar, there is both the intellectual and the emotional. But, at this stage of his life, he’s living on what’s left of his emotions, and I think that’s where Rupert wins.”

He said that the 1960 version was produced during the days when the British authorities still considered gay marriage illegal, adding that it probably wasn’t the great chance of portraying the author as he was.

A still from film "The Happy Prince" by Rupert Everett. /Photo via douban.com

“If a film like this can make people laugh, think and be sad about what England did to him, it’s going to help make people realize that being gay is what Oscar himself might have said was a perfectly normal aberration."

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 21, and is expected to hit the screens in North America in October. It is not known if it will be shown in China, where many are fans of Wilde’s works and witticisms.