Review – Pact with the Devil

Oscar Wilde's famous tale of eternal youth at high cost gets a 21st century luke-warm reheat. This time around Dorian is a reluctant fashion model, the picture is a photograph, and his Lord Henry (Malcolm McDowell) has a more distinctly Satanic twist. What it lacks is any visual sense of moral corruption. Sure, the photo gets nastier as it goes. But the production is spectacularly squeamish about open depiction of any of the sins laying waste to the protagonist’s soul. I get why a version of this story shot in 1945 would have to be careful about what it showed and what it didn't, but why does the 2001 go-around have to be so prudish? It seriously weakens the case it’s trying to make. See if desperate