Dorian Gray [DVD]

I've read so many negative reviews about the 2009 movie Dorian Gray and thought I had to put in my two cents even though I am not good at writing reviews at all, or writing in English in general for that matter. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I've watched it so many times already and it always brought some new feelings out of me. The sensations I experienced from watching this movie never ceased to amaze even myself. I read the novel afterwards and liked it so much that I had to buy its audio book so that I can listen to the witty lines of Lord Henry reading out loud in an authentic English accent.No doubt there are many differences between the film and the novel and I appreciate why some people are upset with this version. All I can say is that for me Dorian Gray is a captivating movie with its own many merits to be remembered. You really need to take the movie as a standalone project and try not to compare it to the original novel. The casts, the music scores, the costumes and settings and the atmosphere it created did not disappoint me. Pieces of the movie lingered with me even after it's long finished, and how I enjoyed savouring these feelings. It made me feel heavy-hearted every time and wanted to know more about the characters, the story and everything around it. To me this is what a good movie does to people, to make them wanting for more. Too many movies I've seen has left me feeling empty. The moment it's finished, it's really finished within you and you walked out of the cinema not remembering much.I thought the actors did a wonderful job. Some reviewers remarked that Ben Barnes was too wooden in this role and I wonder why they say that. To me Ben was marvellous as the leading character Dorian Gray. It`s true that his looks is not your standard Dorian look, rather his beauty is very unusual. I found his unusually dark eyes mesmerizing. There are moments in the movie when his eyes darkened and their shapes changed which added another dimension to the character. As much as I love the novel, largely owe to Lord Henry's witty epigrams and his view on life, I sometimes find the hero of the story Dorian was a bit plain in the novel. Ben in some way intensified the character with his excellent performance. In short he put colours into the pale Dorian and made him so much more alive.I especially enjoyed Dorian's transformation from a young and naive lad to an older and more poised gentleman in the 2nd half of the movie. If you remember when Dorian first entered Lord Henry's party, even with his good friend Basil accompanying him, he looked in doubt ,as if he wasn't sure in how to make a proper entry to such an event. He was shy and timid and behaved rather awkwardly. Gradually through Lord Henry's influence he's on the road of becoming an impulsive hedonist who seeks nothing but pleasure and new sensations. When I first watched the movie, I wondered what really made Dorian kill Basil. They were quarreling over Dorian's cruelty and immorality and he was crossed with Basil which lead to an impulse to kill. You can see Dorian/Ben's eyes changed and his intention of killing was well in his eyes. The final act of stabbing Basil multiple times, well you can see from his expression that he's just `re-killing' someone for the sake of experiencing the sensation of killing again and savouring the moment when the blood splashing out in front of him again and again. He sunk further in to his debauchery and blood became his new obsession.The movie then takes you 25 years later when Dorian returned to London, walked into Lord Henry's party again, by himself, looking ever so confident and poised. Even though Ben still looked the same, I did feel that this was the older Dorian, the more mature Dorian. The way he carried himself and the way he talked all suggested that this was a man who has lived life to the fullest, and who carried so much weights on his shoulder. I thought letting Dorian delivering what was originally in the novel Lord Henry's witty view on social development, religion, arts and love was rather a smart move from the director, suggesting to the audience that his character has evolved. Dorian was not the thoughtless youth whom we've met 25 years ago.I must pay compliment to the make-up artists here, they did an amazing job in `aging' these actors so naturally. If I haven't seen the first half of the movie, I would have thought that they were really in their sixties and seventies. Anyway, I especially liked the scene when Dorian was smoking alone in Henry's library when the latter entered. He said he's coming but didn't move, instead he looked at the portrait of Henry and Victoria and said he was sorry for his loss. Had it been 25 years earlier, it would have been the other way around. How the table has turned now. When Henry seated next to Dorian, recollecting the good old days, commenting on how Dorian has lost his passion for life was because he was away from him for too long, and proposed to `take out the town like we used to.' I even felt a faint sorry for Henry. Nature has not been kind to him, he has lost his charm, his wittiness and his dominance. He was desperate to act like he used to but was unsure if Dorian still thinks the same of him now that he's all wrinkled, grey and just a plain old dude, whilst Dorian was as beautiful and youthful as ever. It must have been hard for Henry to admit that he has lost his dominance over Dorian.It must be a double blow for Henry to realise that Dorian still has his charm over women, even more so when he realised a strong-minded young woman like his daughter Emily has also fallen under Dorian's charm. Emily was an invented character but a necessary one in my opinion as I felt she's like a bridge connecting events and people from the past to the present. Like her father 25 years ago, Emily was immediately fascinated by Dorian's character and pursued him. I wonder if Lord Henry ever saw the irony in all this.I must pay special compliment to the actor who played James Vane. What a tragic character and how it was brilliantly played by the actor! He was only in very few scenes but every time he's on screen my heart wrenched.Having said all above, I do have some small complaints about the movie though, on Lord Henry's character, especially Colin Firth's voice. I know I've said before that you should judge this movie on its own merits, and not compare it to the novel, but I really do hope that Lord Henry's voice could be like how it was described in the novel: languidly spoken, with low musical voice. I think Colin Firth's voice was very harsh and aggressive sometimes. It's not easy on the ears, at least not on my ears.I remembered somewhere in the novel Dorian said to Basil that Lord Henry was too smart and too cynical to be really fond of, where as Colin Firth's Lord Henry was too bitter and too cynical to be really fond of. Not to criticizing Colin's acting ability, I think it was his intention, and probably the intention of the director`s, to make Lord Henry a bitter and malice man from the start to help the story develop, and built up the momentum for the final confrontation between the two. Still I wished they had a more soft spoken and less intense Lord Henry.I also think the movie could be longer and I found some scenes are a bit jumpy. However these are all very minor defects, which bears no adverse effect on my overall enjoyment of the movie.My only regret is that I wish I had watched this in big screen when it was first released back in 2009. How did I miss seeing this movie is still beyond me!

The story of Dorian Grey is well known. Many will have read the book and even those who haven't will likely know the basic plot: Dorian's good looks never change as he ages, the effects of time and his excessive lifestyle only affect the masterfully painted portrait given to him by his friend Basil. But even though he is blessed with eternal beauty and youth, the ever more revolting ugliness of the painting on his wall never lets him forget what a hateful person he has become. For my tastes, the decay of the painting is somewhat overdone, to the point where it grosses out the viewer with maggots creeping out of the eyes and the likes. As far as I'm concerned, less would have been more.The period sets and costumes, on the other hand, are very nice in rather dark tones of grey and blue. Which is befitting for this gothic tale. Some scenes, in particular streetviews including horse drawn carriages, unfortunately smack of cgi to such an extent as to be grating. Which is a pity considering how much effort went into the sets for interiors.The cast is a bit hit and miss. I absolutely love Colin Firth as the manipulative Lord Wotton whose devilish influence increasingly corrupts Dorian's originally kind nature. Firth looks wonderful, he has all the best lines and he delivers them beautifully. Absolutely delicious. Ben Chaplin also works very well as the painter Basil. Rebecca Hall is refreshing in the role of Lord Wotton's daughter Emily, the only person on who doesn't succumb to Dorian's seductive beauty. However, the casting of Ben Barnes in the title role doesn't quite work for me. He is a nice looking young man and a decent enough actor, but his undeniably pleasant looks are rather too ordinary for the sensual beauty of Dorian Grey. He is just too nice and decent to play this utterly debauched character. With the entire story revolving around this character and his proverbial seductive beauty, I was left feeling slightly dissatisfied throughout the film. A pity, because director Oliver Parker went to great lengths to put this, his third adaption of a work by Oscar Wilde (after The Important of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband) together.Not a bad film - in fact, a very elegant one - but with the dark story and the scenes of debauchery and grizzly murders it's not exactly light entertainment. Great for a slow night in and definitely worth seeing for fans of Colin Firth.The DVD is very nice. It has English subtitles for those who may need them and includes a goodly number of extra features: --- Commentary with Director Oliver Parker and Scriptwriter Toby Finlay --- Making of Featurette --- Deleted Scenes --- Bloopers --- Costumes, Locations and Effects Featurette --- Costume Photo Gallery --- Trailer