Review: An Ideal Husband

In a letter, Oscar Wilde wrote of An Ideal Husband: "The critics will say, ‘Ah, here is Oscar unlike himself!' -- though in reality, I became engrossed in writing it, and it contains a great deal of the real Oscar." Lord Arthur Goring (Rupert Everett), his fictional and heterosexual counterpart, is certainly most Wildean and most like Wilde. Motivated only to be the idlest man in London, this resolute bachelor goes about tossing lacerating and clever witticisms with dandyish panache. "I love talking about nothing -- it's the only thing I know anything about" and "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifetime of romance" are just two of his juiciest bon mots.

An Ideal Husband, Oliver Parker's smashing adaptation of Wilde's play, is about how Lord Goring falls in love with the thoroughly modern Mabel Chiltern (Minnie Driver). It is also about the humanization of the ideal couple, Sir Robert and Lady Gertrude Chiltern (Jeremy Northam and Cate Blanchett), an act catalyzed by the scheming Mrs. Laura Chevely (Julianne Moore).

A proposal for the development of an Argentinian canal is set to go before parliament. Sir Robert, one of its most exemplary members, has made it known that he plans to oppose the proposal. Enter Mrs. Chevely, who politely requests he change his mind. If not, she continues ever so sweetly, a certain letter detailing how his wealth and position were gained through deceit will come into light. She rightly points out that the very same press who run headlines of his virtuousness will be more than willing to vilify him. "It is a game of life and we all have to play it sooner or later," she sighs. "At some point, we all have to pay for what we've done." And it is Sir Robert's time now.

Sir Robert is stricken -- knowledge of his past could cost him everything, especially the love and devotion of Gertrude. "Without her, I am unexceptional," he had admitted earlier. "Without her love, I am nothing." He decides to support the development of the canal but his wife suspects that her old school chum Mrs. Chevely may be behind his change of mind. She urges her husband to stand by his beliefs: "You have been an ideal always. Be that ideal still." But the game has only begun just when Sir Robert thinks it's ended and how will the ideal wife react when her husband turns out not to be so ideal after all?

Though any delineation of plotting will confer dominance upon the Chilterns, it is really Lord Goring who is the central character. Despite his resistances to his father's pleas for him to marry, he cannot resist Mabel who wins him on her own terms. It's evident that she's the only one who can accept him as he is and be good for him. "I must tell you I like your bad qualities," she confides and Driver, despite some distractingly terrible bangs, turns in a performance most blithe.

Goring is also deliciously paired with Mrs. Chevely, who was his onetime intended until she found a richer man to which to intend herself. Watch the scene where they try to manipulate each other through seduction -- the (dis)gracing of Sir Robert's reputation the ultimate prize -- and they are two of a kind except that he could never be as callous as she though egotist he may be. Moore has never used her feline wiles to more felicitous effect.

Northam and Blanchett devastate with the subtlest of gestures -- note the expectancy in his eyes when he asks his wife, "I suppose I shall go. Shall I go?" Or Blanchett's eyes as the realization of her husband's imperfection makes its weight known. And there can be no more perfect Lord Goring than Rupert Everett, who was born to quip, born to dash and born to brood. He delivers the heartbreak and haughtiness with equal aplomb and Wilde himself would have enjoyed the irony of his heterosexual counterpart being portrayed by a homosexual actor. The heterosexual light still shines brightly on you, Rupert.

Which brings us to the moral amidst the mating, mendacity and merriment: there are no ideals. Not in our politicians or our friends or our husbands and wives or even our societies. The imperfection's the thing, you see.

An Ideal Husband

Directed by: Oliver Parker

Written by: Oliver Parker; adapted from the play by Oscar Wilde

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver, Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Jeremy Northam