Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5425 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-04-10
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
For truly clever dialogue and a smartly structured plot, you can't go wrong with Oscar Wilde. Wilde's play An Ideal Husband is not his best known, but this film adaptation has all the wit you could ask for and a cast with the chops to deliver it: Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, Oscar and Lucinda), Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights, Short Cuts), Minnie Driver (Grosse Pointe Blank, Big Night), Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy, Emma), and especially Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding, A Midsummer Night's Dream), who tosses off perfect epigrams with unflappable aplomb. The plot hinges on Northam, a member of Parliament (the British governing body, not the funk band) with a skeleton in his closet who is blackmailed into a shady business deal by a lady of mystery (Moore), who turns out to be a loathed school chum of the parliamentarian's wife (Blanchett). Everything is resolved happily, but not until after some devious twists of fate, several mistaken identities, lots of comic banter, and much social skewering. Wilde, whose troubled life and public exposure of his homosexuality is chronicled in the movie Wilde (1997), has a sharp eye for hypocrisy and the artificial poses demanded by society--but political commentary never gets in the way of a smart laugh. Visually sumptuous and briskly paced, An Ideal Husband will satisfy anyone looking for social satire or romantic comedy. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Wide Screen
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
Theatrical Trailer
Featurette
Additional Footage

Synopsis
Sir Robert Chiltern (Northam) is a successful Government minister with a loving wife. He is threatened when a lady (Moore) appears with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring (Everett), an apparently idle philanderer, who takes matters in hand in this wicked yet touching comedy, based on the play by Oscar Wilde.

Customer Reviews

the perfect social satire: one can not beat Oscar Wilde and Rupert Everett is the perfect incarnation
An Ideal Husband is an 1895 play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. The action is set in London, in "the present", and takes place over the course of three days. "Sooner or later," Wilde notes, "we shall all have to pay for what we do." But he adds that, "No one should be entirely judged by their past.

The movie is classy and captures uppper-class London to perfection. The language is wonderful and the lines really amusing like "Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious" or "Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear" or "To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.".

If you like Oscar Wilde you will enjoy this movie as Rupert Everett here as Lord Goring really is the best movie actor to portray an Oscar Wilde character. Cate Blanchett - Lady Gertrude Chiltern -,Minnie Driver - Miss Mabel Chiltern, Julianne Moore - Mrs. Laura Cheveley, Jeremy Northam - Sir Robert Chiltern and John Wood - Lord Caversham - give splendig performances too.Director Oliver Parker has created a real gem.

Rupert Everett steals the show again
I'll be honest, I could watch Rupert Everett reading the phone book for 90 minutes and would probably give it five stars. However this is a perfect film for him and it's good to see him in a leading role rather than a gay cameo (sounds like a great tribute band...) for once. On the flip side, Jeremy Northam is colourless and Minnie Driver seems very uncomfortable in her role (try Grosse Pointe Blank to see how good she is when she's well cast), and like so many films (cf. My Best Friend's Wedding) it does flag a bit when Everett is off screen. Julianne Moore does an English accent so much these days I'm always faintly surprised to hear her speaking American and confusingly makes a more convincing Englishwoman than Driver.

However it's Rupert Everett's film through and through. Wilde's words are the words he was born to speak and it's very, very funny - director Oliver Parker has managed to successfully transfer a play to the big screen, a challenge many experienced directors have failed. Can't wait to see him reunite Rupert Everett with his Another Country co-star Colin Firth in The Importance of Being Earnest - but will tape my sides up in advance in case they split...

An Ideal dialogue film
Having read the other reviews I have to slightly disagree with the overall tone - this is the perfect comedy of manners with outstanding performances by the whole cast. Jeremy Northam plays a gentle shy man conflicted by ambition and his morals whose wife Cate Blanchett puts him on a pedestal to worship. The subsequent revelation of the hypocrisy at the heart of their marriage is deliciously decorated by all the supporting cast who are manipulated by Rupert Everett enjoying the finest hour (or two!) of his career so far.
The DVD benefits enormously from a home cinema system as every word drips with double meaning! It is my favourite dialogue film of all time and far, far, better than The importance of being ....