Rating of
4/4
Unlike the Painting, has Stood the Test of Time
SIngli6 - wrote on 07/02/11
In Oscar Wilde's original novella, the mordancy and erosiveness of his captivating and ingenious wit circumvented the tired tropes of Victorian Gothicism and permitted the more philosophical Faustian themes of the tale to take centre stage. It was that perfect amalgamation of the irreverent and the meditative that convinced me to name the book as the greatest literary work of all time; and it was the refined visual style of director Albert Lewin that finally - after viewing a total of six meager adaptations - satisfied my high standards for the book's adaptation.
Certainly, the film does not have an efflorescent effect on its source material (man cannot reach a higher standard of perfection than that which is seen in Wilde's novella), but it does as much justice to it as is physically possible. Ultimately, this is a truly beautiful and intelligent film - with an extremely underrated screenplay, to boot - and one that should be remembered for eternity (or at least longer than the portrait would ideally last).
