What Does Your Portrait Portray?
This movie version of Oscar Wilde's story The Picture of Dorian Gray has been floating around my Netflix 'suggested movies' list for a couple months now. I keep seeing it, clicking on it, reading the synopsis and then renting something else. Until finally I rented it just to get it out of my sight...perhaps one's first impressions are indeed best to heed.
Dorian Gray is the story of the titled, handsome young man who enters London society naive, fresh and eager to experience the world. Unfortunately he is befriended by the less than honorable Lord Henry Wotton who tutors him on how to 'enjoy' life while Dorian is young and handsome because soon he'll be old and dilapidated and apparently incapable of any joy whatsoever. Dorian buys into this and as Lord Kelso (the painter) finishes the beautiful portrait of Dorian, Mr. Gray unknowingly sells his soul. Now his picture will age and show the signs of sin and a life lived carelessly--while Dorian himself remains young and untouched by the cares of life and sorrows he does not feel.
I should have known better. Just because a movie is based off a literary classic and has Colin Firth in it does not mean it's going to be a literary classic with Colin Firth in it. Okay, yes Mr. Firth was there, but no there was nothing classic about it. It was dull, shallow, slow (but not in a good way), and unemotional. I mean really, the story has promise! It's a great story with lessons to be learned on morality and the true joys that can be found in life. There was none of that. When I told my husband that we were going to watch Dorian Gray he perked up for a minute and said, "You mean the guy from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"? I rolled my eyes at him and asked if he had ever paid any attention to any English class he had ever taken. He replied, "Absolutely not". But to be quite honest, I thought the Dorian Gray in that movie was far more interesting and developed than this one. The hubby is simply glowing with satisfaction!
Motherly Advice: This movie is dark and with my filters mostly on Medium and some Least there was implied premarital sex, alcohol consumption, murder, suicide, 'free-living' kind of lifestyles and some sensuality. Yeah, a real winner if you ask me (insert heavy sarcasm). This movie would be best for ages 16 and up I'd say, if at all.
Danielle'--Sticking with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for Movies About Life and Youth
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