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It's hard to quickly summarize the plot of HUSBAND -- its myriad narrative convolutions are part of its appeal -- but here's the set-up. Lord Arthur Goring (Rupert Everett), never serious if he can help it, is thrust into the role of referee, confidante and reluctant knight in shining armor. His best friend, politician Sir Robert Chiltern (Jeremy Northam), is being blackmailed over a long-ago legal indiscretion by Mrs. Laura Chevely (Julianne Moore). Chevely was once engaged to Arthur and a disliked schoolmate of Sir Robert's beloved wife Gertrude (Cate Blanchett), who worships her husband as a saint. Robert begs Arthur for help - just as Gertrude herself does. Arthur, trying to do the right thing by both Robert and Gertrude, winds up in the center of an increasingly tangled web of half-truths and misunderstandings, where people do the right thing for the wrong reasons and vice-versa. In all the commotion, Arthur may fail to notice that Robert's flippant younger sister Mabel (Minnie Driver) has taken a distinct interest in him.

Adaptations of Wilde -- like any other period pieces -- have been known to be stiff as boards, but director/screenwriter Oliver Parker (who previously performed the same functions on the Laurence Fishburne/Kenneth Branagh starrer OTHELLO) knows his way around the material. Conflicts between image and appearance, short-term desire and long-term commitment are issues that anyone can identify with when properly presented, and Parker is more than up to the task. He sympathizes with everyone in the piece - even its hypocrites and certainly its putative villainess - letting us laugh because we like these people and relate to whoever is in keenest distress at the moment, rather than because any of the characters appear foolish. In this version, when Mrs. Chevely says of her acquaintance Lady Markby (Lindsay Duncan) that "she talks more and says less than any woman I know," Duncan's interpretation slyly shows us that Markby is deliberately stirring the pot while keeping her own secrets hidden, rather than blithely babbling.

The actors are excellent, each one at home with Wilde's impressively intelligent and very funny dialogue. Everett has been perfecting Arthur's sardonic, self-pleased but impulsively huge-hearted persona for years. It's easy to envision Guy Bennett, the adolescent future spy Everett portrayed in 1984's ANOTHER COUNTRY, growing up to be Lord Goring had he shed a bit of angst along the way. Blanchett is luminous as the overly principled, starry-eyed Gertrude, making her passions so palpable that we find we can forgive her narrow-mindedness. Northam's Robert is an all-too-plausible mixture of sweaty guilt, desperation, unthinking smugness and flashes of disconcerting allure.

Moore as the sophisticated, ever-amiable Mrs. Chevely provides almost too much fun; there is nothing that her character doesn't find delightful and fascinating (especially when it involves the discomfort of others). She and Everett play off one another with joyous, knowing dexterity; the characters and actors both seem to have each other's measure. Driver makes some daring choices with Mabel, using mannerisms that at first seem over the top until we notice that she only employs them with Everett's Arthur and winds up looking canny and appealing: What better way to flirt with a self-loving man than to mirror his affectations? John Woodvine as Arthur's perplexed, disapproving father is a hoot.

Parker demonstrates his confidence in the action by allowing his camera to remain still unless there's a good reason to move it. For one thing, the frames are so filled with brilliant colors and varied shapes in a great depth of field that we need the time simply to take in what's in front of us. This also lets us focus on the script and performances rather than unnecessarily tarting up the proceedings with technical flash for its own sake.

Parker is right to believe he's made something that's worthy of our attention. His IDEAL HUSBAND is close to an ideal adaptation. -- Abbie Bernstein - iF Magazine (http://ifmagazine.ifctv.com)

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originally posted: 06/29/99 17:07:34
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