![]() Iñárritu’s “The Revenant,” Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” and Adam McKay’s “The Big Short.” Clearly, they know their way around the Oscars and A-list talent.īack at the du Cap, they’re interrupted. ![]() Abdy came to prominence as a top production executive at Paramount, and later worked at New Regency and Makeready, where she shepherded auteur-driven films such as Alejandro G. He later produced prestige adult dramas like “The Social Network” and “Captain Phillips,” landing Academy Awards nominations and selling plenty of movie tickets in the process. As a young hot-shot production chief at New Line in the 1990s, De Luca helped discover the likes of David Fincher and made “Austin Powers” into one of the most profitable comedy franchises in history. “The legacy studios seemed gun-shy in taking original swings, and we thought they were leaving a lot of talent and material on the table.”ĭeLuca and Abdy would know. “We thought of MGM as an opportunity to test our theory about original movies with signature filmmakers, and supporting first-timers,” De Luca says. In 2020, they were tapped to run film at MGM, where they lined up buzzy projects - to mixed results - such as Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci,” Joe Wright’s musical flop “Cyrano” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza,” before the studio sold to Amazon for $8.5 billion. Two years before, at CinemaCon, De Luca and Abdy were handing out different business cards. The quip didn’t make it into their final speech, being too frank an assessment of the dire situation facing an industry still battered by a pandemic and shifting consumer habits. In Everett’s film, he becomes a figure like Lear, his madness becoming his tragedy as he remains determined to let it finally consume him.“We’ll try to keep this job for more than two years,” De Luca said, sharing a private laugh with Abdy. Wilde is always desperate for more, even when he’s clearly already sick. If you call this a film about addiction, you won’t be far from the truth. And, as is his nature, he continues to pursue contact with the depraved Alfred (Bosie) Douglas (Colin Morgan), the young rake whose tumultuous affair with Wilde ruined him. ![]() Unable to avoid obvious dangers, he slips and falls to the floor for a concussive climax. Wilde attempts a small return to the stage by singing to a delighted music hall crowd while standing atop his table. In recurring flashbacks, the children give the film its framing device as he tells them the bedtime story of the happy prince, a pleasure-seeking young noble who discovers his scruples in dying.Įverett’s deeply sad performance digs into Wilde’s melancholy, unquenchable wit and invincible ego masterfully. Wilde has too many regrets to count, and high among them is his parting from his wife, Constance (Emily Watson), and their two young boys. As the movie comes and goes through different periods of his life, it becomes a meditation on mortality, sexuality, beauty, suffering and the longing for youth. He uses whatever loose change his pockets hold to buy glasses of absinthe or male prostitutes.īut the elegantly dressed London dandy of better days still lives in his memories. Once a literary lion, he now prowls the city's alleys, asking for handouts when recognized by visiting English socialites who remember him from his days of acclaim. It introduces him at rock bottom, living in cheap Paris hotels under the alias of Sebastian Melmoth because France also considers him scandalous. The script doesn’t make Wilde a conventional, overtly sympathetic hero. That was all it took to end his glorious days basking in the applause of audiences for “The Importance of Being Earnest.” In 1897, with a ruined reputation and failing health, he became an outcast in France, imprisoned by bankruptcy and exile. Wilde, the 20th Century’s first true pop celebrity, had just completed two years of hard labor in prison for his crime of being gay and out in Victorian England. The heart of the tale is the twilight of Wilde’s legend, the final three years of his life. Handsomely shot across period-appropriate European locations, the film is faithful to the facts. Both in his disciplined filmmaking, with each scene choreographed as carefully as a dance, and his portrayal of playwright and author Oscar Wilde in decay far past his prime, Everett delivers an almost unbearably bittersweet feast for the senses. Directed, written by and starring Rupert Everett, “The Happy Prince” is a genuine passion project, a creative act existing completely in its own space and on its own terms.
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