A new movie adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray has been tackled by Director Oliver Parker. The movie, titled Dorian Gray, is starring Ben Barnes (the Human Prince in Narnia 2) in the lead role as the ‘young’ Dorian Gray and Colin Firth as Lord Henry, Dorian’s mentor. The film is set for a release September 9, 2009 in UK, but no official date yet for the USA. Watch below the first movie trailer of Dorian Gray:
Plot:
“When a naïve young Dorian (Ben Barnes) arrives in Victorian London he is swept into a social whirlwind by the charismatic Lord Henry Wotton (Colin Firth), who introduces Dorian to the hedonistic pleasures of the city. Henry’s friend, society artist Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin) paints a portrait of Dorian to capture the full power of his youthful beauty and when it’s unveiled Dorian makes a flippant pledge: he would give anything to stay as he is in the picture – even his soul.”
The film seems to shy away from the homoeroticism of the original book written by Oscar Wilde, well I guess it’s because they’re afraid afraid of losing a mainstream audience otherwise. But that’s a shame, they’re kind os spoiling Ben Barnes’ talent! If Robert Pattinson can be gay, I’m sure Ben Barnes could do it too!
:)
Back in the late 40’s they did decent job of bringing Wilde’s story to the screen w/o playing up the homoerotic aspects. From the trailer it looks like they’ve done as good as or better than the original
It’s a pity this is not coming out in the states at all (not that I’ve heard anyway). Collin Firth is a great actor, and let’s face it Ben Barnes seems to make a good face for Dorian (I’m even willing to overlook the fact that Gray is supposed to be blond and blue eyed, I’m kind of a stickler for details). Anyway, I guess i’ll just have to wait for the DVD.
Yeah, why is Dorian in movies never blond haired and blue eyed like in the book? I’m also bothered by the amount of straight sex that occurred in that minute in a half trailer. None of that ever happened in the book either! Homosexuality, though subtle, was still a big part of Dorian Gray… Ugh, I’m just upset that movie producers are still squeamish about making movies with male homosexual main characters….
(still really want to see this though)
Somehow I think the entire World is still a little touchy on the subject of homosexuality in the theatres. The film Milk, I remember caused quite a stir. Really Dorian Gray could have been a good step towards making the subject less taboo.
Dorian gray should have been played by someone beautiful… I am sorry, but his beauty is an essential part of the story. He is suppose to be amazingly beautiful and his beauty is such that everyone agrees and sees it right away.. now if they had a guy who had such looks but had dark hair, ok… but this guy does is not beautiful like described. Big mistake.