Gary Oldman (Hannibal) and Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2) star in this stunning true story about a long-term love affair that ends with a shocking murder-suicide. Told in "sizzling flashbacks and forwards" (Elle), this Golden Globe-nominated*, "sharp, ...
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Gary Oldman (Hannibal) and Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2) star in this stunning true story about a long-term love affair that ends with a shocking murder-suicide. Told in "sizzling flashbacks and forwards" (Elle), this Golden Globe-nominated*, "sharp, pithy, exuberant and unflinching film" (The Hollywood Reporter) from director Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things)and writer Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George) "mesmerizes you, holding you in its thrall" (Los Angeles) from first frame to last. Frustrated writers, co-conspirators, friends and lovers, Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell (Oldman and Molina) serve respectively as protégéand mentor in each other's life until Orton's breakout success heightens Halliwell's sense of his own failure. With the young playwright's every new achievement, Halliwell's diminishing role leads him to a desperate attempt to keep them as equals forever. *1987: Supporting Actress (VanessaRedgrave)Amazon.com
Joe Orton was briefly the embodiment of a certain kind of '60s rebel, and Stephen Frears's film adaptation of the British playwright's biography successfully conjures up that outrageous spirit. The hostile, fussy codependency between Orton (Gary Oldman) and his brooding lover Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina) forms the centerpiece of a story that features not only Orton's success and his brutal demise at Halliwell's hand, but also a vivid depiction of what gay sexuality meant in a repressive era. What really propels it are the performances--Oldman's naughty, overgrown boy could believably have written Orton's romps, and the powder-keg priss rendered by Molina helps establish motivations that the script lacks. It's always good to see Vanessa Redgrave (ideal as Orton's agent), and Julie Walters has a hysterically unrecognizable bit as Orton's exasperated mum. If the film is a bit aloof, it's also crisp and often acidly funny (Orton and Halliwell do jail time for writing luridly phony synopses in library books). Frears has done a memorable bit in bringing both a man and his time to life. --Steve WieckingSimilarProduct