The last days of Oscar Wilde are vividly evoked in The Happy Prince, starring and directed by Rupert Everett, and co-starring Colin Firth and Emily Watson.
In a cheap Parisian hotel room, Oscar Wilde lies on his deathbed and the past floods back, transporting him to other times and places. Was he once the most famous man in London? The artist crucified by a society that once worshipped him? The lover imprisoned and freed, yet still running towards ruin in the final chapter of his life? Under the microscope of death, he reviews the failed attempt to reconcile with his long-suffering wife Constance, the reprisal of his fatal love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and the devotion of Robbie Ross who tried to save him from himself.
From Dieppe to Naples to Paris, freedom is elusive, Oscar is a penniless vagabond, shunned by his old acquaintances, but revered by a strange group of outlaws and urchins to whom he tells the old stories – his incomparable wit still sharp. Rupert Everett, in the role he was born to play, shines as the fallen genius, who finds light even in the darkest corners of life.
