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Poor Ben Barnes. He really can’t catch a break. His first big film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was considered a box office disappointment, despite making over $400 million. Less than stellar reviews for his work in Easy Virtue (except this reviewer of course) and low budget British flick Bigga Than Ben followed. And now the train wreck that is Dorian Gray.

I blame director Oliver Parker, who really has no clue how to handle the material. What should have been a dark, gripping portrait (pardon the pun) of a man’s demise turns out to be tawdry and with about as much depth as Dorian’s painting.

There are many times where the film is unintentionally camp. The film plays at being ’sexy’ and ‘dangerous’, yet the scenes (or rather montages) demonstrating Dorian’s acts of corruption come off as ridiculous. Dorian’s seduction of countless women is utterly unbelievable. Actually, it’s laughable.

The mise-en-scene doesn’t do the film any favours either. The costumes and set design of the repressed Victorian England are too bright and over the top in their use of colour to be a successful contrast with Dorian’s life of excess. The film also feels like it was shot entirely on a soundstage (I don’t know if this is so, but that’s what it feels like). There is no air, no life to the film. And in a film that is essentially about the value of life that is distracting.

The final act of the film is the only time Dorian Gray shows potential. By that point Parker has disposed of the ridiculous montages, and actually focused on the crux of the story: the repercussions of Dorian selling his soul. However, it’s all in vain because you can’t forget the horrendous mess that was the rest of the movie that it doesn’t even matter.

Not that the actors don’t try their best. But even they can’t break though the bad direction and a clunky script.

Colin Firth looks almost embarrassed to be there. Barnes tries really hard to make it work, but I could never quite grasp why young, innocent Dorian would sell his soul in the first place. I have never seen anyone drown before but I image it would be something similar to watching Rachel Hurd-Wood’s performance in this film. She is out of her depth, and basically has absolutely no idea what to do with herself except stand there all wide-eyed and pouty. Rebecca Hall’s character Emily Wotton (who was invented for the film) is nothing more than a cliché of a late Victorian/ Early Edwardian suffragette, who, despite her intelligence, still manages to fall for the charmless Dorian.

Of course, Oscar Wilde’s mediation on the value of art and the soul was always going to be difficult to translate to screen. In more artistic (again, no pun intended) hands this film could have been thrilling.

But this film is an embarrassment that I am sure Mr Barnes would like to permanently remove from his resume.

Should I See It?

Don’t bother, unless of course you are one of those types that enjoys inflicting pain on yourself.