Oliver Parker's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", which can be seen in cinemas from today, is not worth seeing. There have long been better and, above all, more modern adaptations of the Oscar Wilde classic. Some of them centre on the subject of HIV.
For outsiders, hero worship is usually one thing above all: extremely boring. This also applies to Oliver Parker's "Dorian Gray". In his third Oscar Wilde adaptation in ten years, the director knows little to do with the material. He merely depicts the superficialities - which in Wilde's only novel were merely a means to a satirical end.
And an evil one at that: A young man exploits people for his own ends, doesn't even shy away from murder and rises to become a legendary dandy in the London salons of the turn of the last century. Meanwhile, a painting of the young man ages in his place in the cellar.
The desire for eternal youth and invulnerability despite a purely hedonistic approach to life - what material this could have made for in 2010! Greed instead of humanity, sex and no death, fashionable beauty instead of personality: Gray is an empty shell, stripped of all morals but pretty, carried to the highest heights by the social winds of his time. How contemporary, if you dare.
Instead, Parker persists in plush comfort, stages light horror from the page and has found a Dorian Gray in Ben Barnes who is so smoothly beautiful that you wouldn't give him a second glance in Berlin or London clubs.
Colin Firth doesn't help much here. As Gray's foster father Lord Henry Wotton, he is allowed to deliver a few pretty acting petitessen and - while painting Gray - literally ejaculate colour onto his canvas.
Just three years ago, directorial debutant Duncan Roy proved how interesting the material can be with his version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray". In it, milquetoast David Gallagher, known as the innocent young Christian in "A Heavenly Family", tries to run away from a mysterious illness as Oscar Wilde in 1980s New York. He remains young, beautiful and healthy, while his lovers die by the dozen after sleeping with him.
The modernisation is not entirely successful, but it is certainly more exciting than Parker's gothic costume ham. Roy's film has unfortunately only been shown at a few gay festivals in Germany, but the original version is available on DVD.
If that's too exhausting for you, you can read the ultimate Gray-HIV variation as a novel: Will Self's 2007 satire "Dorian" places Wilde's hero in 1990s London. He is beautifully gay, deeply superficial, addicted to sex and drugs, HIV-positive and a good friend of Lady Di. Self's multi-award-winning and critically acclaimed novel is drastic, honest, accurate head cinema and better than any feature film on the subject. And the paperback edition is also cheaper than a bad evening at the cinema for two. (Paul Schulz)
Trailer for "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (Director: Oliver Parker)
"The Picture of Dorian Gray", USA 2007, Director: Duncan Roy, available on DVD (Trailer)
Will Self: "Dorian", Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag, 352 pages, 10, 90 euros
