VHS : An Ideal Husband [1999]

Rating: - the perfect social satire: one can not beat Oscar Wilde and Rupert Everett is the perfect incarnation
An Ideal Husband is an 1895 play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. The action is set in London, in "the present", and takes place over the course of three days. "Sooner or later," Wilde notes, "we shall all have to pay for what we do." But he adds that, "No one should be entirely judged by their past.

The movie is classy and captures uppper-class London to perfection. The language is wonderful and the lines really amusing like "Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious" or "Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear" or "To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.".

If you like Oscar Wilde you will enjoy this movie as Rupert Everett here as Lord Goring really is the best movie actor to portray an Oscar Wilde character. Cate Blanchett - Lady Gertrude Chiltern -,Minnie Driver - Miss Mabel Chiltern, Julianne Moore - Mrs. Laura Cheveley, Jeremy Northam - Sir Robert Chiltern and John Wood - Lord Caversham - give splendig performances too.Director Oliver Parker has created a real gem.

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Rating: - Seriously underrated film
This is the sort of film that you really want to own. It loses nothing and gains detail the more often you watch it. Rupert Everett's lack of leading roles is a great loss to film, as he has the looks, timing and presence to carry off any number of romantic leads. I don't see what an actor's private proclivities have to do with what they portray on screen - Cary Grant being an interesting topic in that respect. Anyway, it's a fantastic script, a good plot, a serious message in a fluffy film with a happy ending. Perfect Sunday-night viewing.

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Rating: - A really good film
Marked down from 5 to 4 because of the poor sound production at times, but still worth watching nevertheless.

This is a film where the words are crucial, it is based on a play by Oscar Wilde after all! So why did they think it would be a good idea to have obtrusive 'background' music spilling into the foreground and nearly drowning out the speech? Not all the time, but enough to take the edge of an otherwise excellent film.

Forget a night at the theatre, just watch this, though now I've seen it I will take the opportunity to go and see the play if I can.

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Rating: - An Ideal dialogue film
Having read the other reviews I have to slightly disagree with the overall tone - this is the perfect comedy of manners with outstanding performances by the whole cast. Jeremy Northam plays a gentle shy man conflicted by ambition and his morals whose wife Cate Blanchett puts him on a pedestal to worship. The subsequent revelation of the hypocrisy at the heart of their marriage is deliciously decorated by all the supporting cast who are manipulated by Rupert Everett enjoying the finest hour (or two!) of his career so far.
The DVD benefits enormously from a home cinema system as every word drips with double meaning! It is my favourite dialogue film of all time and far, far, better than The importance of being ....

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Rating: - Funny period piece
A well-written romantic comedy by Oscar Wilde is given the "period" treatment by Oliver Parker ("The Importance of Being Earnest"), and survives. Wilde's witticisms, Rupert Everett, Cate Blanchett and the gorgeous costumes and decor make this worth watching. The story verges on the sentimental at times, but the acting saves it, in particular that of Rupert Everett and Cate Blanchett. Minnie Driver is fun to watch but does not quite fit the part; Julianne Moore does a flawless English accent (with elocution-lesson embouchure) but she was more fun to watch in "Magnolia"; Cate's husband in the movie is completely forgettable; Everett's father is very funny, and the butler Peter Vaughan is worth watching too ("Remains of the Day", "Legend of 1900"). On the minus side, the sound on my DVD version was in bad need of tweaking - the dialogue was whispered and I kept having to turn the volume up.