Debauchery.
As in, Colin Firth and Ben Barnes’ Dorian Gray, probably only loosely based Oscar Wilde’s singular fabulous novel, taught me the definition of the word debauchery. And I don’t mean that in the way it may sound. LoL, this blog is so wrong.
Okay, restart. Since my life is so utterly dull and I’ve nothing to talk about… I’ve found my new favorite movie and I know its positively atrocious since it’s not really a true adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and maybe Ben Barnes isn’t the best actor to ever hit town, and, okay, maybe I am just watching it for the complete and total hot factor of *Prince Caspian* seducing everyone and anyone he comes into contact with throughout the film… but what the heck, it’s review time.
Dorian Gray has shortened the title of the original novel, added plot and characters, and changed a few things around. And while the novel (read by yours truly eons ago- freshman year) left everything to the imagination, Wilde’s wild and much frowned upon in its time plot was left mostly to subtext; the movie seems to have come at things a little differently. Dorian Gray has ripped what was better left unsaid one hundred years ago out of the book’s many pages and thrown it onto the big screen, illuminating the faces of the audience (I can only assume) with images of pure impurity.
Ben Barnes’ portrayal of the title character, the eternally young Gray, is truly exemplary. One can see his transformation from man to monster as he begins the film as an innocent, beautiful youth and slips into the cold, calculating role of a heartless immortal with apparent ease. The corruption and decay in Gray’s character is no longer merely visible in his infamous portrait, but in his callous eyes, eyes that seem to have seen far too much for one so young, so beautiful, and so heart-breakingly innocent.
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