Dorian Gray

There is nothing wrong with writing a screenplay about how Dorian Gray may have turned from prig to predator, once he'd sold his soul to the devil and his portrait aged while he did not. Where this one veered left was it turned into one example after another of Dorian's nekked, drug- and alcohol-filled escapades. It was sensational at first, got really boring. Forever-adored Colin Firth was a single note throughout, just a preening, encouraging enabler. Yawn. After 30 minutes of hoping for an actual story to kick in, I gave up.

This is the worse reboot of this classic tale that I’ve witnessed and in a long time. The director completely missed the mark on this film. Dorian Gray by his very nature was narcissistic to the point, he’d never have given up his immortal life willingly. Not even out of love for a woman. The very nature of the tale is centered around the fact of just how far someone would go to retain their youth and beauty of said youth and Dorian Gray gave his soul for this very curse or gift however you wish to view it and only when he was finally forced to look at the horror of his panting portrait was the spell finally broken. Other than this, Dorian would have never willingly given up his immortality. He couldn’t. He could not see past his own vanity enough to break the spell of the portrait. That’s the bottom line right there. Do not waste your time with this film. It is such a waste.

the bulk of the film is a nice adaptation of the novel, capturing its essence. the quest for eternal youth and beauty, the immunity from consequences (at least physical appearance), and the moral depravity to which it leads. barnes does quite a nice job as gray, and firth is of course convincing in his role. the ending, though, is disappointing. for some reason the writers felt the need to insert a new love interest, firth's daughter, which just doesn't work. and they also inserted some silly action scenes at the end, complete with running through the streets and hellfire. adding sound effects to the painting was also a misfire. all in all, quite good, but a silly an disappointing ending.

Ben Barnes has more than his share of boyish good looks and he capably enacts both Dorian's initial naivete and his eventual heartlessness. The screenwriters have deprived Colin Firth of most of Lord Henry's bubbly but biting conversation and have made him dark and malicious. The screenwriters also try to make Dorian's depravity as graphic as possible--they seem to think that the only way to seek sensation is to use drugs and have sex. The murder is unnecessarily bloody. His disposal of the body departs from the novel and thereby excises one of the more dramatic scenes--Dorian's cajoling and eventual bullying of his former friend into making the corpse go away. Dorian's flight from James Vane and the frantic final rush of everyone to the attic room belong in a different movie. The film might be honestly marketed as "inspired by" or "suggested by" the novel.

Oscar Wilde wrote a perfectly macabre, ripping story and if only the creators of this film had stayed true to his tale… the talents of the genuinely wonderful actors were too often squandered throughout this film. Key performances in this cast make this film worth watching. There were definitely some truly engaging passages and there might have been more, but I suspect somebody’s prurient pre-teen nephew was allowed to have made postproduction editing decisions. He may have even sat in on the preproduction storyboard meetings. In addition to a slightly ham fisted plot and the hit-and-miss use of CGI, character Emily Wotton’s carelessly groomed hair should have been more historically accurate and befitting of a wealthy British suffragette of the early 1900s. (Yes, yes, I know, a picky minor detail perhaps, but I found her hair distracting and just as jarring as it would have been to have gotten a glimpse of Vans™ sneakers under her skirts.) And would not have handsome, ageless, vain Dorian kept in better bespoke step with mens’ early 20th century fashions as he gorgeously journeyed through life?

This films is a bit slow even with the violence that ensues to stay young forever as Basil Hallward paints Dorian's portrait, and Dorian declares that he would give his soul if he were always to be young… It is a classic tale but I thought no one is this crazy to lose all of their values within a month of inheriting wealth, unrealistic and sadistic. I only watched half of it before I started shaking my head and turned it off.Dorian Gray portrays a real Faustian Bargain, in the legend Faust traded his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge or in this case youth. Dorian is willing to sacrifice anything to satisfy his limitless desire and takes it to far without relent. So long as his picture is intact Dorian does not age instead all his actions are passed onto the portrait, which ages and becomes deformed, and more vicious looking but not the real Dorian. A great morality play but as a film it just seemed to drone on...

The resurrected Ealing Studios' 2009 version of Dorian Gray feels very much a case of one step forward, two steps back. Unlike the classic 1945 version of Oscar Wilde's most famous work laxer censorship means we can actually see some (but not enough to harm the TV sales) of the sin and depravity that corrupts its ever youthful antihero's soul and leaves the map of his misdeeds on his portrait instead of his own face. Unfortunately director Oliver Parker, while not as misguided here as in his modern day comedies, is so fanatically devoted to keeping the story moving above all other considerations that apart from the odd party scene he never really summons up much of a decadent atmosphere, leaving that sort of thing to the production design department.On the plus side it has Colin Firth on good form as Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian's guide in his descent into immorality with a bitter witticism to justify every degeneracy, and there's a good if a tad uninspired supporting cast. Unfortunately they have to work overtime to compensate for void at the film's centre courtesy of a very awkward Ben Barnes, who plays the pre-deal with the Devil Dorian like a newborn simpleton and only marginally improves once he embraces the pleasures of the flesh (he's at his best in the later scenes after Dorian realises that pleasure and happiness are very different). It doesn't help that his first shot in the film has such a bizarrely waxy appearance that he looks like an Auton, one of the killer shop tailor dummies from Doctor Who, an impression only enhanced by his unnatural movement.Sadly Rachel Hurd-Wood, so good as Wendy in the 2003 Peter Pan, is even worse as Sibyl Vane, now an actress playing Hamlet's Ophelia rather than Juliet (so no prizes for guessing how she'll end up in this version). Giving a quite awful turn that's phenomenally stilted and mechanical, their scenes together provide the dispiriting sight of two weak performers dragging each other down rather than raising their game and feel more like something out of a bad school play than a life-consuming passion. But then even the usually reliable Rebecca Hall gives a horribly misjudged performance that's far too 21st Century to convince, leaving you with the impression that Parker is just leaving his cast to their own devices.Then there are the inevitable changes, some to give characters more of an arc - where Wilde's Lord Henry remains resolutely irredeemable to the end, the film's version is vicariously living and destroying himself through Dorian only to be gradually appalled by what he has wrought, leading to a misjudged finale - others more for shock effect - where the 1945 version opted for bursts of Technicolor for the grotesque portrait, this version opts for CGi, live maggots and agonised rasps. There's more explicit violence, but with screenwriter Toby Findlay seeing it as a 19th Century American Psycho and Parker not doing subtext there's none of the philosophy or underlying class struggle of the novel, its homosexual undertones made clumsily overt in case we miss them (in Wilde's uncensored version it is suggested the painter's obsession with the one beautiful thing in his life gives the painting its power, something the film ignores in favour of having the two have offscreen `thank you' sex). There's no sense of Dorian enjoying the terrible pleasure of his double life either nor of his embodiment of a hypocritical society that tries to hide its own sins in the attic behind a pleasing and innocent countenance.But overall the film's problem isn't that it's bad - it has enough strong points to hold the interest, the corrupted and syphilitic portrait when inanimate is strikingly naturalistic and it's much better at the passage of time than previous versions even if the old age makeup on the supporting characters is pretty poor. It's that it's so mediocre, so unadventurous and so lacking in screen poetry to match Wilde's words while failing to replace them with anything half as compelling or shocking.The UK Blu-ray release offers an acceptable transfer (the film doesn't have a particularly strong visual look so doesn't really benefit much from high definition) and plentiful but uninspiring extras - audio commentary by Oliver Parker and Toby Finlay, 5 deleted scenes, various featurettes, bloopers, costume gallery, and trailer

Yes I enjoyed the movie....but want to watch it again, now I have the full gist of the story.....a bit of everything really. Spooky, sexual, sad thrilling but worth watching .....and again

Dorian Gray is one of my favourite Oscar Wilde's book. The movie is also very good. Brilliant play by Colin Firth as Lord Wotton and ben Barnes as Dorian, who resembles Oscar Wilde himself. I missed the movie at cinemas and I watched the dvd with great pleasure.

Mit diesem Film aus dem Jahr 2009 unter der Regie von Oliver Parker entstand eine wunderbare Mischung aus grusligem Gothik-Horror und beissender Gesellschaftssatire. Der Film basiert auf Oscar Wildes gleichnamigem Romanklassiker von 1891.Hier geht es um Großstadt-Glamour, Schönheitswahn und die Folgen eines Selbstverwirklichungstrips...und im Zentrum steht ein Teufelspakt.Der junge Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) kommt Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts nach London, um ein reiches Erbe anzutreten.. Dort wird das unbedarfte Landei vom großspurig auftretenden Lord Wotton (Colin Firth) unter die Fittiche genommen und in das gesellschaftliche Leben der Großstadt eingeführt. Schnell gewöhnt sich Gray an den ausschweifenden Lebensstils seines Mentors und aus dem schüchternen jungen Mann wird ein selbstverliebter Dandy, der sich seiner Wirkung auf das weibliche Geschlecht durchaus bewusst ist und diesen Effekt auch reichlich ausnutzt.Seine jugendliche Schönheit wird nun sogar mit Öl auf Leinwand verewigt. Lord Wotton gibt dem braven, insgeheim schwulen Maler Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin) ein Portrait von Dorian in Auftrag und ihm gelingt ein Bild in vollendeter Schönheit. Dorian, vom eigenen Anblick gerührt, entfährt die Äußerung, seine Seele würde er dafür geben, dass nicht er, sondern das Gemälde an seiner statt altert. Sein Wunsch wird auf wunderbare Weise Wirklichkeit. Dieses Geschenk ewiger Jugend erweist sich jedoch bald als Fluch, dem Dorian Gray nicht mehr entkommen kann. Nur das Bildnis enthüllt sein Geheimnis indem es zum Spiegel seiner Seele wird.....Dorian Gray wird von seinem väterlichen Freund Lord Wotton in so ziemlich jedes Laster eingeführt: Tabak, Alkohol, Opium und Sex, in allen Ausschweifungen. Das wird in düsteren, tiefdunklen Bildern ausgemalt und mit entsprechender Musik unterlegt. Das nächtliche, spätviktorianische London liefert zudem Kulissen, die prächtig zu dieser Gothic-Atmosphäre beitragen . Der junge Mann genießt all diese zehrenden Ausschweifungen, die in immer heftigeren und berauschenderen Bildern dargestellt werden, ohne dass sein Astralleib daran Schaden nehmen würde. Das verwunschene Gemälde vergreist nicht nur, die Ölfarbe droht aus dem Rahmen zu schmelzen, es fressen sich garstige Maden durch die Leinwand, es verwandelt sich durch seinen Lebensstil in ein furchtbares, knurrendes Monster.Doch das eigentliche Drama ist ja fast schon ein anderes. Erst reißt sich die Gesellschaft um den schönen Jüngling. Lange berauscht sie sich auch daran, dass er sich besser hält als sie. Aber je länger dieser Zustand anhält, je größer das Missverhältnis wird, desto mehr schwelt Neid und schließlich auch offene Ablehnung, und das noch bevor Dorian in unveränderter Schönheit von seiner langjährigen Reise zurückkehrt.Dabei leben wir längst in einem Zeitalter, in dem nicht wenige 20 Jahre jünger aussehen, als sie tatsächlich sind. Und doch, das hat sich bestimmt nicht einmal ein Oscar Wilde ausmalen können, wirken viele Botox-Gesichter selbst nur noch wie Fratzen, in denen sich nichts Menschliches mehr regt.Ben Barnes hat in den "Chroniken von Narnia" bereits einen Traumprinzen (Kaspian) gegeben und darf das hier wiederholen. Als Dorian bleibt er allerdings zu sehr an der Oberfläche und weiß die zunehmende Zerrissenheit und Abgründigkeit seines Charakters leider nicht so recht darzustellen. Die Sensation, die in dieser Figur liegen sollte, ist kaum nachzuempfinden. Schade eigentlich. Wenn Gray verzweifelt ausruft, „meine Seele verfault, sie stinkt“, dann müssen deshalb in diesem Film Maden und Fliegen her um das besser zu veranschaulichen.Dafür kann er aber eins: Gut Aussehen. Und damit auch jeder begreift, wie sehr die Frauenwelt dem platten Beau reihenweise verfällt, darf dieser auch schon mal eine adlige Debütantin verführen, um sich gleich darauf mit deren eigentlich besorgter Mutter zu vergnügen, während die Tochter noch unter dem Bett auf die Fortsetzung wartet.„Der einzige Weg, eine Versuchung loszuwerden, ist, ihr nachzugeben."Insgesamt ist diese Version von „Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray“ wunderbar unterhaltendes Kino. Mich konnte der knapp zweistündige Film durch seine Mischung aus Dramatik, Surrealität und grusliger Spannung von Anfang bis Ende fesseln.

Ben Barnes excells as the beautifully corrupt Dorian and Colin Firth is magnificent as the man who unleashes Dorian's carnal appetites but ultimately suffers as his own daughter becomes involved.