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United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy · 2018
Rated R · 1h 41m
Director Rupert Everett
Starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Colin Morgan
Genre Drama
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The story of the last days of Oscar Wilde. This great man of letters, once one of the most famous authors in England, is now a superstar on the skids. As Oscar lies on his death bed, the past comes flooding back to him, transporting him to other times and places.
Even if his prosthetics make him look a bit like James May, Everett is near-flawless, and his film is a superb showcase for an actor whose celebrity has at times overshadowed his talent. There’s been plenty of due diligence in terms of the details, and anyone who thinks Wilde was just the Stephen Fry of his day will learn a lot here.
For every haunting sequence in The Happy Prince, there’s five that redundantly wallow in Oscar Wilde’s misery, which is Rupert Everett’s point, but it becomes wearisome.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
The Happy Prince proves that a film can be both bleak and warm-spirited, as befits its mighty subject.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
Despite Everett's command in the central performance and a script liberally sprinkled with amusing bons mots, The Happy Prince generates only faltering dramatic momentum and a shortage of pathos.
The Happy Prince largely amounts to a bland rumination on Wilde’s lesser-known decline.
Screen International by Fionnuala Halligan
Wilde’s mighty struggle with himself, with his heavenly talent and earthly lusts, and the meaning of it all resonates so strongly with the direction and performance that The Happy Prince is easily elevated past period Victoriana (and that wallpaper) to move and engage in equal parts.
The Playlist by Gregory Ellwood
It’s well crafted and compelling at times thanks mostly to the casts’ efforts, but there is an emptiness that permeates through the film as if a significant piece of Wilde’s demise is missing.
As a final, permanent showcase for a role Everett was born to play, then, The Happy Prince does the job. For all its passion-project hallmarks, however, it makes a shakier case for him being the filmmaker to bring it to screen.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
This film is a deeply felt, tremendously acted tribute to courage.
Everett overdoes the lachrymosity right at the end, the one part of the film where a more subdued rigour would have served him better. At the very least, though, it’s a command performance he puts in front of us, an uncompromising feat of empathy in the role he’s made his own more than any other.
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