An ideal husband
I’ve been sitting here watching An Ideal Husband (starring Cate Blanchett, Jeremy Northam, Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore and Minnie Driver), while crocheting flowers. The things we do. But this is an all-time favourite movie. For a long time it wasn't available on DVD and I bought it only recently when I discovered that it was, so have just re-watched it after years. I do love it.
Before you groan over the seemingly hopelessly unrealistic romance of the title, if you are unfamiliar with the original play by Oscar Wilde, one of the themes of the play is actually the error of making of anyone an ideal.
On finding out about the past indiscretion of her husband (a man known for his uncommon integrity), Lady Chiltern, a woman of character, says this, before banishing him from the house:
You were to me something apart from common life
A thing noble, pure
The world seemed to me finer because you were in it
And goodness more real because you lived.
The plot is an intriguing and amusing web of political intrigue – involving the suez canal – and romantic entanglements, centering around the marriage of Lord and Lady Chiltern. It’s actually very entertaining “comedy” and I find Rupert Everett’s character and some of his lines highly amusing.
When all is said and done and all intrigues come to an end in the light, Lady Chiltern does come to forgiveness of her husband, and says “we have all of us feet of clay”. She then receives this advice from the seeming fop, Lord Goring, about whether or not she gives her approval to her husband continuing in politics:
Lady Chiltern: I set him up too high.
Lord Goring: Do not then set him down now too low. Dear Gertrude it is not the perfect but the imperfect who have need of love ... All I do know is that it takes great courage to see the world in all it’s tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love ...
Indeed she realises that she has, herself (to her astonishment), lied, under pressure to serve her own ends. It all comes to a finale with the line “the truth is – the truth is – I lied!”.
It’s not at all “romantic comedy” (well, not entirely!), but rather a warning against unrealistically idealising or elevating any person. In my humble opinion, it's worth watching.
And that’s about all I’ve got to say for a Friday evening. Today actually felt like the longest Friday afternoon ever and I was glad to finally get home and flop on the couch and do nothing much of anything.