ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

gsygsy Gary Oldman follows up his unknowable Sid Vicious in SID AND NANCY with an equally elusive Joe Orton in what is ultimately a riff on A STAR IS BORN. As Orton's star rises, that of his needier, more vulnerable lover Kenneth Halliwell, played with compassion by Alfred Molina, declines.The screenplay, by Alan Bennett, is based on critic John Lahr's biography of Orton. Bennett makes the writing of the biography part of the story, and briefly tries to parallel the relationship of Lahr and his wife Andrea (played by Wallace Shawn and Lindsay Duncan), but I'm not sure that it helps the film much. Splitting the story's focus in its early sections removes us from Orton himself. That's who we want to stay with. The only real benefit the Lahr section gives us is one wonderful scene between Ms Duncan and the great Joan Sanderson as her hyper-middle class mother, decoding shorthand sections of Orton's diary to reveal highly salacious behaviour. Ms Sanderson's deadpan performance, enthusiastically uncovering Orton's meaning while remaining steadfastly unshocked, is one of the highlights of the film for me.There are a dozen or so cameos from other wondrous actors, mostly known for their theatre work -- Margaret Tyzack, John Moffatt, Julie Legrand, Selina Cadell -- as well as substantial support from Francis Barber and Janet Dale as, respectively, Orton's warm-hearted sister and eccentric landlady.Ultimately, the film rests on the shoulders of the central trio: Orton, Halliwell and Orton's agent, the redoubtable Peggy Ramsay. She is played by Vanessa Redgrave in a glowing performance, that helps to hold the disparate parts of the film together.Molina's work I've already praised. So we're back to Gary Oldman, who is absolutely brilliant as Orton. What Oldman is able to do is to accept, rather than explain, his characters. He thinks it's OK not to make them totally knowable, and he's right.Director Stephen Frears is equally difficult to pigeon-hole. He favours realism on the one hand, but on the other he is capable of pulling off highly-charged scenes - like the orgy in a public lavatory -- which might floor less gifted artists.All in all, an entertaining and informative film, not without its flaws. In particular, its depiction of gay men's lives in the late fifties and early sixties is interestingly honest.

a_baron Joe Orton was just 34 when he was battered to death in August 1967; had he lived, he would almost certainly have become one of the greatest dramatists of his age. But Orton had a dark side, and it was this that contributed in no small measure to his untimely demise.This play begins with his murder and then fast forwards twenty years. Orton was killed by his male "lover" Kenneth Halliwell, who took his own life immediately afterwards. They may have lived together, written together, and ultimately died together, but that was as far as their similarities went, because while Halliwell was a lost soul, tortured by his homosexuality, Orton revelled in it, and in a brazen depravity which would have made him a more than suitable target for the "Operation Yewtree" witch-hunt that ensued nearly a half century after his death.Orton's diaries were published by John Lahr in 1986, and depraved they are. This TV dramatisation revolves largely around the diaries and their publication, covering Orton's early life briefly, how he met Halliwell at RADA - for which Orton had won a scholarship - their failed collaboration on literary works, and their bizarre crimes for which they were each sentenced to six months imprisonment, and which paradoxically was the making of Orton. (Neither the first nor the last time that has happened)."Prick Up Your Ears" - an obvious anagram just in case it was not obvious to you - strives for authenticity, and succeeds. Fortunately the play/film does not dwell on Orton's cottaging misadventures, though it does show him and Halliwell in Morocco doing unspeakable things with young men, at least some of whom were underage. Although the Beatles do not appear herein, we do see Brian Epstein, who while himself homosexual had nothing but contempt for Orton, and would not allow him to sully the image of his charges. Sadly, he would die a mere 18 days after Orton, in dissimilar but equally controversial circumstances."Prick Up Your Ears" is a worthy biographical document, but don't watch it unless you have a strong stomach.

moonspinner55 The life and death of devilish homosexual British playwright Joe Orton who, in 1964, had his first play "Entertaining Mr. Sloan" produced on the London stage after years of flailing about. Orton's open-ended relationship with his flatmate/lover, the hulking, desperate Kenneth Halliwell, is often brilliantly observed by director Stephen Frears, who manages to make this masochistic relationship funny and creepy at the same time. Gary Oldman's performance as Orton is prankish, malicious and enormously amusing; his prodding of Halliwell is excruciating, yet one can see how much it turns Orton on. Alfred Molina's Halliwell is really Orton's flip-side: self-conscious, needy and hopeless, he begins as Orton's writing partner but quickly degenerates into a lackey, his morose despair becoming more anxious and impenetrable. A finely-tuned, intentionally callow, brightly-colored bauble of immoral behavior. Terrific supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave looking marvelous as a literary agent with a soft purr of a voice. **1/2 from ****

fran7204 I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The was a good camaraderie between the twomain characters of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell but I couldn't help feeling sorry for Kenneth as he was such a tragic figure - his invisibility, his hair loss, his compulsive behaviour, his unappeal to other gay men.......... I bought this film in a box set with other Gary Oldman films - because he is such a versatile actor, his roles have led me to being introduced to subject matters that I would otherwise be totally ignorant about, one of which is the playwright Joe Orton's most colourful but short life...and at least Kenneth got therecognition he thoroughly deserved in this film, albeit not in his lifetime. Watch this film and enjoy it as I did and see Dr Octopus in a most challenging role!.