Dorian Gray (2009)

On a Scale of 1 to 10, 10 Being the Best

2

 

Plot: First of all, I read the book (Picture of Dorian Gray.Written by Oscar Wilde) and I was furious on this adaptation. There were a lot of sex scenes and opium smoking in this movie while the book vaguely referenced those, at best. Also the main character, Dorian Gray, had brown hair and brown eyes when the book states at least 100 times that he is blonde and blue eyes. Now, for the actual plot. The story is about a young man who wishes to stay young and beautiful forever after seeing a painting of himself. What he discovers is that his soul is now trapped in the painting and it will carry all his sins and physical deformities (such as age). He eventually becomes corrupted by one of his "friends" Lord Henry and while the painting becomes more hideous, Dorian Gray stays the same. It sounds interesting and it is...the book that is. The movie tries to sell itself off as horror and it doesn't work.

Characters/Actors of Note:

Ben Barnes playing Dorian Gray: I was severely disappointed in the way Dorian Gray was portrayed. Dorian Gray is supposed to show how unaffected he is by his sins and acts like a sociopath. In this film, Ben Barnes shows a very angry person who is constantly blaming others. The ones that wrote the script added in a story line of abuse which, in turn, created a vengeful and sulky person. He came off angsty and annoying. I am not familiar with other Ben Barnes movies but if he plays all his characters as sulky angry people, I am not interested.

Colin Firth playing Lord Henry Wotton: I have actually never seen Colin Firth play the bad guy before so this was a little interesting for me. Although the character in the book is perfectly horrible and was in this movie, I was upset that Colin Firth seemed to steal the show. Don't get me wrong, Lord Henry is a large part of both the book and movie but I felt that instead of the movie being focused on Dorian Gray's soul they focused way to much on Lord Henry corrupting him. I wish that Mr. Firth would have backed off his crazy so Ben Barnes would have been more of an upfront character. 

Rachel Hurd-Wood playing Sybil Vane: This former Peter Pan star has grown up and I was quite excited to see her in this movie...only to be disappointed. I found Ms. Hurd-Wood to be so soft spoken that it was hard to believe the actions she later took. When she got angry it seemed unreal and it appeared she was trying hard to be angry. I feel a more charismatic person should have been cast.

Music: Like horror movies? You should like this music then. If you thought you were watching a drama, then you won't like this music. There was too much heaviness in the music that made you suspicious the entire time you watched the film. At times it fit but other times I thought it was too much of a scary tone. Like Mr. Firth, it should have backed down.

Camera Work/Cinematography: I can't state enough how much the cinematography annoyed me in this film. This isn't a horror movie but the director tried to make it seem that way. The painting would hiss and groan, the angles made you think "someone was watching," and the overall greens and whites were overused and overdone. This is a drama, this is isn't scary, stop making it look like a two-bit horror film.

RECAP: 

This movie was dark and tried to convince the audience it was a horror movie. Guess what? Not buying it. I am frankly a big scardy cat and this movie just made me mad with its all the sex scenes, the horror music, and the acting. Mr. Firth was too big, Mr. Barnes was too angsty, and Ms. Hurd-Wood wasn't enough. Put those all into the book being butchered, count this as a no go. 

Courtesy of Pinterst

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