Film review: Dorian Gray

DORIAN GRAY (15) * DIRECTED BY: OLIVER PARKER STARRING: BEN BARNES, COLIN FIRTH, BEN CHAPLIN, REBECCA HALL

GIVEN we're living in the midst of a venal, vanity-driven celebrity culture where fame is treated as a goal in itself and Botox and Photoshop offer quick-fix solutions to combat the irrational fear of ageing, the timing should be perfect for a decent cinematic adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Detailing its protagonist's Faustian pact to preserve his youthful perfection with a painting that ages while he indulges his every vice, Wilde's tale offered up a potent metaphor for the soul-corrupting costs of such behaviour that remains as relevant today as it ever was. What a shame, then, that Dorian Gray, the latest stab at Wilde from Brit filmmaker Oliver Parker (he previously adapted An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest for the big screen), offers up only the most literal interpretation of Wilde's story, using it as the basis for an unintentionally campy period film that plays out like a vampire movie with no vampires.

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Kicking off with a spot of murder and body-disposal from its titular protagonist in Victorian-era London, the film rewinds a year to introduce us to Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) as he arrives in the capital a wide-eyed, callow youth ready to claim his inheritance. Catching the eye of painter Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin), who is so taken with Dorian's beauty he wants to capture it on canvas forever, he's soon introduced to London society, where he falls under the corrupting influence of Lord Henry Wotton (Colin Firth). It is Wotton who, with an envious eye, encourages him to drink from the cup of life and make the most of his beauteous youth to seek out any and all experiences without regret. Some chatter about having the guts to trade his soul for immortality in the presence of Basil's much pored-over portrait subsequently results in a transference of Dorian's soul to the picture, where it promptly begins to rot, distorting the portrait into a hideous aberration while its real-life subject remains blemish free.

Actually, Parker opts against showing us the picture too much. Just as all reference to it has been dropped from the film's title, it mostly remains hidden in Dorian's attic, its horrific nature gauged only on the faces of anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with it. This is supposed to build up dramatic tension to a final unveiling, but this falls flat, thanks to Parker over-egging it with flashy changes in film stock and an intrusive, clanging score. Unfortunately, that also means the film leaves us with far too much time to focus on its soulless protagonist's descent into debauchery, something that exposes a chief problem with the film: namely, that it doesn't seem to know what to do with Wilde's source material.

Firth's pithy delivery of Wilde's best epigrams raises a few smiles; but mostly Dorian Gray inspires howls of derisory laughter as it tries to sex itself up with scenes of opium orgies, S&M sessions, man-on-man tongue-tussling and intergenerational seduction. Barnes is hopelessly bland and way out of his depth when it comes to this kind of thing. His startled acting style gives him the demeanour of a bunny in headlights, not a rabbit rutting for dear life. What's more, while he may be pretty as a picture (something that worked adequately for him as Prince Caspian in the last Chronicles of Narnia movie), he exudes about as much sex appeal as a piece of Ikea furniture. This is a role that demanded the kind of lascivious leeriness Johnny Depp brought to his portrayal of the Earl of Rochester in the furiously filthy The Libertine, not someone who makes Orlando Bloom seem like Jack Nicholson.

If Barnes is bad, Parker's clunky compositions, his fondness for throwing claret around and his tendency towards melodramatic plotting don't help. Working from a screenplay from first-timer Toby Finlay, the film diverges from the book by introducing Lord Henry's daughter, Emily, into the equation, using her as a last-act love interest, a salve for Dorian's conscience and a way to give Firth a more active role in bringing about the film's resolution.

Played with spiky authority by the excellent Rebecca Hall, her appearance momentarily lifts proceedings… until she's asked to fall for Barnes's Dorian, a feat even she can't fake convincingly. It's not her fault: the film and its star are against her. It's easy enough to see why he would suddenly fall for Emily as played by Hall, but rather more difficult to imagine what she could possibly see in Barnes's Dorian – unless her character's back-story as a suffragette has given her a taste for chaining herself to inanimate objects.

Parker tries to sustain interest with a ludicrous chase on the London Underground and some Grand Guignol effects work, but it's feeble stuff. Dorian's perma-perfection in the midst of his ageing counterparts should have been genuinely creepy and disturbing, not a cue for lots of Goth posturing. In the end, this has been slickly enough made to have the appearance of commercial viability, but it's all surface gloss and faux decadence, a pretty picture with no heart or soul, and a vacuous reminder of the artistic and intellectual sacrifices made in mid-level, publicly-funded British films in their pursuit of box-office booty. Perhaps some souls are withering away in the UK Film Council now.