***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver, Rupert Everett, Jeremy Northam, Julianne Moore, John Wood, Peter Vaughn, Lindsay Duncan, and Jeroen Krabbe.
Directed and written for the screen by Oliver Parker, from the play by Oscar Wilde.
1999 PG13
Along with Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde wrote some of the best dialogue in the English language. But while Shakespeare’s dialogue can be labored over, spoken heavily, and given all manner of weight, Wilde’s wit is best delivered when tossed off, casually, whimsically, the lighter the better. Oliver Parker’s “An Ideal Husband” knows this intimately; all is frolic and whimsy, and even when gravity is about to rear its head, someone tosses off a comment like “I swear I will be nothing but trivial, and to never give my word again.”
The ideal spouse of the title is, at first, Jeremy Northam as an upright and honest member of Parliament in 1895. He is an ambitious but honest self-made man. Conversely, his best friend is Rupert Everett, a decadent and endlessly witty aristocrat who only permits himself to “be serious on the first Tuesday of every month, between noon and two p.m.” By the end of the of “An Ideal Husband” we will come to realize that neither character is as predictable as they appear, that Northam has feet of clay and Everett, like most decadent wits, has morals that he keeps hidden. This transition is set in motion when Everett’s ex-fiance (Julianne Moore) arrives in London hoping to blackmail Northam with a secret from his past unless he endorses an unethical business scheme in Parliament on her behalf. Moore hopes to blackmail Northam via the press, then realizes that blackmailing him via his adoring wife (the adorable Cate Blanchett) might be just as much fun.
Here are the makings of a frolic of men and women in evening dress dodging each other in a big house in pursuit of the blackmail letter, with hints of infidelity popping up. There certainly is some of that but, like a good Woody Allen film, there is a surprising punch of morality by the end. The performances are uniformly excellent and the characters are all likable, with Everett leading the pack as the man with so much inside knowledge he feels “like the latest edition of something.” Northam is a good choice for the ideal husband because he is a supporting player, not a star; a more showy actor would have turned his role into the main character and eclipsed the parts played by Everett and the others. Blanchett is positively huggable as a woman married more to an ideal than a real person. Special praise should be made to Minnie Driver, who makes entertaining a character that serves little real purpose in the story, and whose attraction to Everett is abrupt and perfunctory. And of course there’s Julianne Moore, who is no less than delightfully hateful.
Oliver Parker’s direction is energetic and cheerful, and while great care has been made over customs and art design, none of this is dwelled on more than it should be. The result is carefree, whimsical, and intelligent, yet easy to follow. When most modern comedies are predictable stories sloppily told about nasty people, “An Ideal Husband” is like a breath of fresh air.
Finished March 4, 2002.
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