Tag: Ioan Gruffudd

Amazing Grace (2006)

Ioan Gruffudd in full flight in the conventional but charming Amazing Grace

Director: Michael Apted

Cast: Ioan Gruffudd (William Wilberforce), Romola Garai (Barbara Spooner), Benedict Cumberbatch (William Pitt the Younger), Ciaran Hinds (Banastre Tarleton), Albert Finney (John Newton), Michael Gambon (Charles James Fox), Rufus Sewell (Thomas Clarkson), Youssou N’Dour (Olaudah Equiano), Toby Jones (Duke of Clarence), Nicholas Farrell (Henry Thornton), Sylvestra Le Touzel (Marianne Thornton), Stephen Campbell Moore (James Stephen), Bill Paterson (Heny Dundas), Jeremy Swift (Richard)

From 1782 to 1807 William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) fought a long – sometimes lonely – campaign to end the slave trade (and eventually slavery – the film confuses the two, with slavery continuing in much of the Empire for over twenty more years) in the British Empire. During that time, he competed with vested interests, parliamentary rivals and accusations of being a radical at a time when Britain was at war with Revolutionary France.

Michael Apted’s old-fashioned film covers this, hitting every beat you would expect for a biographical drama. It uses a traditional framing device of starting in the middle of the story: Wilberforce in 1797, depressed, hooked on laudanum and out of hope, revitalised by meeting Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai) who will become his wife. This makes for a perfect narrative tool as it means she can ask him questions like “tell me what happened” which serves as a neat entrée into a whole host of flashbacks sketching out in the swiftest means possible the history of abolitionism.

Amazing Grace could have been made in the 1930s, so closely does it hue to the classic rules of biopics. It’s practically a structural brother to The Life of Emile Zola, a hagiographical portrait of an (admittedly outstanding) man which shows the expected arc of moral awakening, early success, tricky mid-point, the sad years, getting the band back together for one final big push ending in friends and foes alike coming together to hail his accomplishments. It’s all threaded together with a script that carefully moves through every event, simplifies history down and sometimes wears its research rather heavily.

You can’t argue that it isn’t well-meaning and heartfelt, but its simplicity (and the careful traditionalism of its shooting) makes it look more like a well-made TV special than an actual movie. But if you are a sucker for such things, as I am, it has more than enough to engage you. It also makes a compelling case about the horrors of the slavery and allows a few moments of spotlight to fall on former slave turned abolitionist Olaudah Equiano (well played by Youssou N’Dour). It certainly has its heart in the right place, its passionate liberalism and sense of moral outrage very clear.

Gruffudd – his skill for playing reluctant moral authority and duty honed from playing Hornblower – is good as Wilberforce, his obvious investment in the subject matter clear. Garai doesn’t have much to do other than tee up flashbacks, but does it with charm. Many of the rest veer on the side of fruity: Hinds and Jones scowl effectively as slave-owning senior lords (for some reason they sit in the House of Commons; Jones is even playing a Duke for goodness sake!). Gambon twinkles as only he can as Charles James Fox. Finney hams up lustily as the blind John Newton. Best of all though are Sewell as an eccentric Thomas Clarkson and Benedict Cumberbatch in an early sign of star-quality as the morally divided, reserved but decent Pitt the Younger.

It all comes together into something that seems tailor-made for Sunday afternoons. Nothing wrong with that – and not every film needs to reinvent the wheel – and since it wears its heart so openly on its sleeve, you can’t help feeling warmth towards it. It’s a Spark notes look at history – and glosses over the fact that slavery itself continued for decades – but as hagiography it’s endearing and as a feel-good biopic it succeeds at what it sets out to do.

King Arthur (2004)


Clive Owen leads his merry men in clumsy would-be Arthurian epic King Arthur

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Clive Owen (Arthur), Ioan Gruffudd (Lancelot), Keira Knightley (Guinevere), Stellan Skarsgård (Cerdric), Ray Winstone (Bors), Mads Mikkelsen (Tristan), Joel Edgerton (Gawain), Hugh Dancy (Galahad), Ray Stevenson (Dagonet), Stephen Dillane (Merlin), Til Schweiger (Cyrnic)

The story of King Arthur has entertained generations for so long, it’s actually a bit of a surprise that there hasn’t been a great movie made about it. Sure there have been entertaining guilty pleasures (like my love for the bobbins Excalibur) but there hasn’t been a great action adventure made about the legendary king. And this Jerry Bruckheimer actioner sure ain’t it. But it re-enforces my seemingly never-ending appetite for distinctly poor, big-budget, epic films.

Arthur (Clive Owen) is a half-Celtic Roman cavalry officer who commands a Sarmatian cavalry unit, serving a fixed term of service with Rome. They help to guard Hadrian’s Wall against rebel native Britons. Before their discharge, the knights are given one last job: go behind enemy lines to rescue a prominent Roman citizen living beyond the wall. Once they arrive, they find he has enslaved the local Brits – including imprisoning a young woman named Guinevere (Keira Knightley). Knowing a Saxon invasion force lead by the fearsome Cerdric (Stellan Skarsgård) is ravaging Britain – and that the Romans are withdrawing from the empire – Arthur decides to lead the whole group back to the wall and safety.

King Arthur isn’t a terrible film, just a totally mediocre one. It’s an uninspired coupling together of half-a-dozen other better movie: from its Dirty Dozen line-up, through its Gladiator style score (Hans Zimmer rips himself off again), to its remix of a thousand period sword epics from Spartacus on, mixed with its Braveheart style design and battle scenes. It’s almost completely unoriginal from start to finish. There is no inspiration here at all – it’s made by people who have seen other films and based everything on that rather than wanting to make a film themselves.

It even wraps itself up with an unseemly haste, as if all involved knew they hadn’t nailed it so decided the best thing to was to knock the whole thing on the head and call it a bad job.

The film probably stumbles from the start with its claim to present a sort of “true historical story” of King Arthur. Now I’m not one to get hung up on historical accuracy too much – except when it’s making extravagant claims which are just not true – but the “true story” here is bobbins. Nothing really feels right – from the Roman politics to the idea of a group of loaded Roman settlers setting up a huge estate deep into Scotland (I mean what the fuck was Hadrian’s Wall for eh?). The knights bear very little resemblance indeed to their legendary counterpoints. In fact it’s almost as if they had a script about a brave band of Roman soldiers and just stuck the name King Arthur on it for the name recognition (perish the thought!).

The idea of a group of seasoned, grizzled warriors isn’t a bad one – and it works rather well here because most of the actors in these roles are pretty good (particularly Mads Mikkelsen as a sort of Samurai Tristan). It makes for some interesting dynamics and always some fine character work – the best arc going to Ray Stevenson’s Dagonet as a knight who finds something to fight for. It also contrasts rather well with Stellan Skarsgard’s world-weary villain, who’s seen it all and finds it hard to get excited about ravaging and pillaging anymore.

But it’s a shame that this promising set-up gets wasted. After a good start, when we get to see all our heroes’ personalities reflected in their fighting styles as they repel an attack on a bishop, these dynamics quickly settle down into the usual tropes: you’ve got the joker, the cocky one, the reluctant one who’s only out for himself… Fortunately the Director’s Cut (which I watched) deletes the worst of Ray Winstone’s comic “banter”, but it’s still pretty standard stuff.

The mission behind the wall then pretty much follows the pattern you would expect: the guy they go to rescue is an unsympathetic bastard, they find themselves protecting the weak, it’s a dangerous journey back to safety, blah-blah-blah. Although a battle on the ice has some genuine excitement to it, there isn’t anything new here at all. Everyone just feels like they are going through the motions. 

When the battles kick off in earnest, they are pretty well mounted – even if they are hugely reminiscent of the opening battle of Gladiator and the low-camera, immersive battles of Braveheart. Sure there is a smoky immediacy about them, like a sword wielding Saving Private Ryan, but it’s still pretty much what you would expect. The action pans out with no real surprises – our heroes and villains even match up for the expected clashes.

Clive Owen is a fine actor, but he is manifestly wrong for the role of a classical hero and the awe-inspiring battlefield heroics he is called to carry out here. He’s too modern an actor, with too much of the world-weary smoothness to him, for him to really convince as this hardened medieval warrior. Owen’s delivery and style is so restrained he can’t bring the bombast or elemental force the part requires. Allegedly he was cast because Bruckheimer believed he would be the next James Bond – the actor they turned down for Arthur? Daniel Craig… 

Nope. Sorry.

Similarly Kiera Knightley is just as miscast. Let’s put aside the fact that she is half Owen’s age. There is a prep school headgirlishness to her that just doesn’t work when we are asked to buy her as woad-covered warrior princess. She’s too strait-laced, too polite, too sophisticated. When she does step into the full-on Boudicca look, you’ll giggle rather than tremble. For all her exertion, she’s not convincing in the role either.

But then that’s King Arthur all over: trying hard but not convincing, with such a tenuous link back to the original myth that the fact they are just using the Arthur name to flog some more tickets is all the more obvious. Major elements of the legend are missing – in particular the Arthur-Lancelot-Guinevere love triangle is cut down to the merest of suggestions, enough for it to be noticed but not enough for it to feel like a real plot – and other elements (Merlin, the Sword in the Stone, the Round Table) seem shoe-horned in for no real effect. It’s basically just a bombastic B-movie, a sort of Gladiator rip-off without the poetry. Moments of fun, but still not that good.

Wilde (1997)


Jude Law and Stephen Fry in a disastrous love affair in sensitive biopic Wilde

Director: Brian Gilbert

Cast: Stephen Fry (Oscar Wilde), Jude Law (Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas), Jennifer Ehle (Constance Lloyd Wilde), Vanessa Redgrave (Jane Francesca Agnes “Speranza” Wilde), Gemma Jones (Sibyl Douglas), Judy Parfitt (Lady Mount-Temple), Michael Sheen (Robbie Ross), Zoë Wanamaker (Ada Leverson), Tom Wilkinson (Marquess of Queensbury), Ioan Gruffudd (John Gray)

Could there be a more perfect piece of casting than Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde? Not only is Fry the spitting image of the famed Irishman, but Fry’s own mercurial talent, his enormous outpouring of novels, articles and screenplays, his skill as a raconteur and his general ubiquitous presence as a personality make him a pretty good modern equivalent of Oscar Wilde. A lifelong admirer of Wilde – and an increasingly vocal proponent of gay rights and mental health awareness – Wilde’s life plugs into many of Fry’s own outlooks on the world. So yeah, perfect casting!

Opening in 1882 with Wilde’s tour of America (he effortlessly charms a group of clichéd “yee-haw!” silver miners – who literally fire their guns into the air in delight at his bon-mots in the film’s crudest touch), the film covers Wilde’s growing career, but focuses on his personal relationships. Unaware of his homosexuality, he marries Constance (Jennifer Ehle), but discovers his true nature with her friend Robbie Ross (Michael Sheen). However, this leads to his destructive, obsessive love for alternately petulant and caring Lord Alfred Douglas (Jude Law), his beloved “Bosie”. When he is accused publically of sodomy by Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury (a raging Tom Wilkinson, chewing the scenery), Wilde takes the matter to court – a disastrous decision that destroys his life.

Brian Gilbert’s film is a sensitive and lovingly crafted slice of period drama, that movingly demonstrates the hypocrisy of Victorian values. Wilde is celebrated by the public, despite the open secret of his and Bosie’s relationship, while rent boys (including a one-line appearance from Orlando Bloom!) and discrete gay relationships are common place. Wilde is a gentle, naïve man for whom emotional closeness is more important than physical love. He charms a society only too aware of his nature. However, the instant he causes a stink, his reputation is ruined and his life collapses. What the film does so well is give us a sense of the inner vulnerability, doubt and desire for affection at the heart of a man who, perhaps more than any other, lived his life as a public exhibition.

Halliwell’s Film Guide claimed the film attempted to reposition Wilde as a family man, a grossly unfair view of the film’s stance. As if a man who discovers he is gay could not love his children, or that he could no longer care for his wife. Similarly, accusations that the film shows Wilde’s homosexuality as the roots of his downfall are similarly misguided – Robbie Ross is unaffected by legal troubles and he’s openly gay. No, the film is making a far more conventional (in a way) point – Wilde was brought low because he fell hopelessly in love with the wrong guy.

Jude Law’s big break was in this film – and watching it again is a reminder of what a firebrand, dynamic actor he can be. He makes Bosie half monster, half emotionally vulnerable child. He alternates (sometimes within the same scene) between affection, devotion, kindness and wildly petulant rage. He’s overwhelmingly selfish and self-obsessed – even as Wilde’s life collapses, he can only whine that he is furious his father is winning – but then remorseful and guilt-stricken when the consequences of his actions become clear (but not enough to not do it again). Law juggles all these contradictions with astonishing skill – it’s an assured, magnetic performance of brilliance. We can see why Wilde adores him, while at the same time wanting to wring his neck.

It’s also clear why all the other characters around Wilde find him so appalling. Ross (and Sheen is similarly superb as Wilde’s tragically “friend-zoned” devoted admirer) can’t bear the appalling influence Bosie has, but knows he’s powerless to do anything about it. In one great scene, Bosie haughtily says he knows Ross always hated him, before cruelly saying it’s because Wilde loved Bosie, but Ross was only “one of his boys” – the look of pain on Sheen’s face is brilliantly moving. Wilde himself seems almost sadly (if inevitably) drawn into Bosie’s tastes for casual sex and rough trade – often playing voyeur at these events, while sadly accepting Bosie doesn’t find him physically attractive. Wilde’s basically the victim of an abusive relationship – and the film does a brilliant job of demonstrating why a man otherwise so blessed with intelligence can’t see it.

Julian Mitchell’s excellent screenplay (based on Richard Ellman’s award-winning biography) uses Wilde’s The Selfish Giant as a framing device – subtly comparing Wilde and Bosie respectively to the giant and the child. It also brilliantly constructs a sense of Wilde’s quick wit and staggering intelligence, and provides a host of sparkling cameos for some fine character actors. The production design and photography are spot-on, and while Gilbert may be slightly workmanlike in his filming, he certainly lets the story tell itself.

The focus on Wilde’s family life is also reassuringly different – it’s brilliant to see Wilde’s obvious adoration for his children, and plenty of indication that he was actually (much of the time) a very good husband and father. Mitchell’s script softens Constance’s reaction to Wilde’s conviction (she wasn’t as forgiving and forward-thinking in her views as she seems to be here) but it does mean that we are allowed to see the full story of Wilde’s life, rather than having him defined by his sexuality. Jennifer Ehle also does a marvellous job with very little material, and her quiet dignity and support for her husband (despite her anger at his obsession with Bosie) is very affecting.

But at the centre of all this is that perfect casting of Stephen Fry. In all the rest of his career, Fry will never be better than he is here. His Wilde is intellectual, mildly arrogant, but also naïve, gentle and almost unworldly. His voice is perfect for the aphorisms, and he is really striking physically. Above all though, he brings a deep, emotional empathy to the part – you feel how personal this is for Fry the actor, and you feel how closely he identifies with a man who discovered his sexuality late. His besotted, blind love for Bosie is as affecting as it is frustrating. His vulnerability in Reading gaol is deeply moving. It’s a quite marvellous performance, anchoring a movie that is gentle, kindly, caring and sensitive in exploring the inner life of a very public man.