SYNOPSIS
Based on Oscar Wilde’s classic – and only – novel (full title The Picture of Dorian Gray), the film sees Ben Barnes as Dorian, the prettyboy who wishes that his portrait would age while he stays youthful. With disastrous consequences. Colin Firth plays Wilde-cipher Lord Henry Wotton, whose flip observation that the only things worth pursuing in life are youth and beauty starts the whole process.
The book was first published serially in 1890, but has incredibly only rarely been officially filmed. There are a few silent versions between between 1910 and 1918, and a really great 1945 version starring George Sanders as Wotton. The glimpses we get of the horribly old Dorian in this trailer look very much like the terrifying painting from that film. The rest are mainly TV adaptations, although Stuart Townsend played Dorian in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
