Cate Blanchett in "An Ideal Husband."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Rupert Everett, Jeremy Northam, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett Director: Oliver Parker Rated: PG-13, with sexual innuendo Length: 96 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(July 2, 1999) -- A potential scandal, triggered by an indiscreet politician and a wily, seductive young woman. Why, it seems like just yesterday.

Actually, this particular scandal comes to light in An Ideal Husband, a play Oscar Wilde wrote more than a century ago.

But a sparkling new movie version demonstrates its continuing relevance to any age that features indiscreet politicians. And isn't that any age?

Add a strong dose of romantic comedy, Wilde's razor-sharp wit, smart direction by Oliver Parker and a superb cast, and you have An Ideal Husband.

Rupert Everett stars as Lord Arthur Goring, a devoted partygoer and confirmed bachelor who refuses to take anything seriously. But then his best friend, Sir Robert Chiltern, gets into serious trouble.

Jeremy Northam plays Chiltern, a fast-rising member of Parliament and well-regarded gentleman in London society. He has a captivating wife (Elizabeth's Cate Blanchett) who dearly loves her "ideal husband." He has good looks and an impeccable reputation.

Or had, until the adventuress Mrs. Cheveley (Julianne Moore) runs into him at a party.

Mrs. Cheveley knew Robert years earlier and knows about his one major youthful indiscretion.

She threatens to reveal everything unless Robert changes his key vote on an Argentine canal appropriation. If he has a "change of heart" on the vote, she stands to make a ton of money.

Thus blackmailed, Robert turns to Arthur for help. And of course Arthur wants to do all he can, though he can't imagine how much it'll complicate his own life. Especially his love life.

Arthur, you see, is being pressured by the persistent affections of Robert's sister, Mabel (Minnie Driver), and by his own nagging father (John Wood), who feels it's high time his playboy son got married.

Writer-director Oliver Parker has more success adapting Wilde than he did Shakespeare in his respectable but passionless 1995 version of Othello.

Parker cleverly expands An Ideal Husband out of the drawing rooms of the stage version to include sequences in Parliament, at lavish parties and on high-society horseback in Hyde Park.

He even includes a night at a West End theater, where popular playwright Oscar Wilde takes a curtain call.

Parker also weaves his first-rate actors -- three Brits, an Aussie and an American -- into a seamless, marvelously witty ensemble.

For thoughtful filmgoers suffering through Hollywood's summer brain drain, An Ideal Husband is, well, ideal.