It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The story is a challenging one to tell, and although all concerned make a valiant attempt to capture the genius and tragedy of the man, somehow the end result is not entirely convincing. At times, a little over dramatic and cliched; and excessively focused on Wild's sexuality. At the end of the film one feels one knows more about Wilde, but does not know him better.

We are, of course, blessed in England with a language in which often a single word can be made to do double duty and capture a given situation to perfection. I employ such a word in my summary where 'wild' refers not only to the focus of the film Oscar Wilde but also to his ambivalent feelings to his bete noire Lord Alfred Douglas aka Bosie, the object of Wilde's love/lust who treated him abominally and could truthfully be described as Wilde's nemesis. Rupert Everett's passion for and commitment to the project is undeniable and shines through every frame but like at least one other person writing here I was strangely unmoved ultimately and I cry at card tricks. There was in England - indeed may still be - a manufacturer of brass instruments named Boosey & Hawkes which allowed the observation that Oscar Wilde was fond of blowing his own trumpet - a Bosie & Hawkes. Bosie, it appears, was bad for Wilde in more ways than one.

I hope Rupert Everett will get all possible awards (Like I hoped for 3 Billboards last year :) He played, directed and wrote the skript. Took 10 years. But the way its all done! I am in love. His first movie - like first love - raw and real and true and deeply personal. And no fashionable, self-loving "make up" "adv commercial" reality. Watch on big screen. And last words on black screen will put everything in even bigger prospective.P.S. You will not recognize him, though he is playing with no prosthetics.

There have been three excellent previous screen versions of Wilde's fall from grace, but THE HAPPY PRINCE outshines them all.Pre- and post-Fall are interwoven. Oscar tells 'The Happy Prince', his dark (Grimm) fairy story, to his children in flashbacks from Paris, where he also tells it to a couple of street kids who have become the children of his exile although the older brother is also his rent-boy. Bloated and dishevelled, the old Oscar still has the appetites which sent him to prison. And he still loves Lord Alfred Douglas, who joins Oscar in a villa in Naples (with more rent-boys) in Naples for a few bickering months. Robbie Ross (Edwin Turner) and Reggie Turner (Colin Firth) are the last London friends who offer loyalty and handouts.Everett's Wilde is as poignant as Stephen Fry's but even more pitiable as poverty and ill-health overcome him. Colin Morgan gives 'Bosie' his prettiest incarnation since John Fraser in 1960. Emily Watson shines in brief scenes as Oscar's wife Constance, also forced into exile by his disgrace. Tom Wilkinson contributes a vivid cameo as the priest brought to Oscar's hotel deathbed. The famous lines about the wallpaper and 'dying beyond my means' are not forgotten; and Everett has scripted a few one-liners Oscar would happily steal the credit for.The final scenes almost certainly take liberties with the facts, but they add an operatic grandeur to the 'Last Act'. Rupert Everett's long struggle to realise this project is a splendid homage to the tragedy of the 'comeback' that was Wilde's greatest drama, his greatest tragedy. The movie deserves to be garlanded with awards: an Oscar for Oscar!