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With screen adaptations of The Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest and a turn as Wilde himself in a 2012 revival of The Judas Kiss already under his belt, Rupert Everett is everywhere in his perhaps inevitable biopic of the man with whom he is so clearly fascinated: in the writer’s room, in the director’s chair, in the leading role. His is a gritty and far from glamorous fin de siècle image of Wilde.

Framed by a telling of Wilde’s titular 1888 short story, the film mirrors some of its themes, too: the disparity between poverty and wealth, judgement and fatalism, love and compassion. It’s aware that many know the basic details of Oscar Wilde’s life – he was born and raised in Dublin; he attended Trinity College and Oxford; he rose to fame in London; he was charged with gross indecency after a passionate love affair and a scandalous trial. It is predominantly concerned with elaborating on what most don’t know – or, more accurately, what most choose to forget.

It is interesting to see the parts of Wilde’s life that could be shied away from – desperation, desire for excess, discrimination – blown up on the big screen. He had a wife, Constance (played compellingly by Emily Watson). He had two sons. He had a string of lovers, including a young poet named Lord Alfred Douglas (a blond and waifish Colin Morgan), known as Bosie. He was sentenced to two years’ hard labour at Reading Gaol. It is this period which becomes a major focus for the film.

In The Happy Prince, the audience only sees glimpses of the flamboyant, boyish literary figure who is celebrated today. The extravagant appearance, the refined wit, the playful intellectualism and the melodious speaking voice which made him one of London’s most sought-after dinner guests as well as one of its notable writers all feature, but they are in flashbacks, confined to the past. All but a few are imbued with a kind of sadness, as the film returns to the despondent, deteriorating state with which it is concerned. Prison strips Wilde of the glamour of his former life. The scene where he is jeered and brought to his knees on a train platform, waiting to transfer from one prison to another, is particularly affecting.

Everett’s older, greying, overweight Wilde is world away from what he once was, and from what the audience might expect. This tired, worn-out Wilde of later life is one of contradictions: a writer who finds he can write very little, a father who has neglected his sons, an aristocrat sliding into decay. His new life in France is lonely, impoverished, and humiliating. This version of Wilde speaks as if reading from one of his many essays or plays, filled with beautiful imagery and metaphor as well as some favourite witticisms, but he struggles to walk, puts on rouge to appear more alive, and looks increasingly ill. Some of the lines are lifted directly from his work, however unlikely it is that he would have spoken so eloquently all the time. Maybe the dialogue can be forgiven given the subject of the film. It requires a bit of grandeur, even as the highs of adulation – conjured with performance, theatre, and high society – are paired with an ostracized demise.

In exile, his social circle, which once featured poets, painters, theatre personalities, and intellectuals, has melted away. Among the friends who remain are Canadian critic and artist Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas), who at times handles Wilde’s publicity and acts as his confidant, and the writer and fellow aesthete Reggie Turner, played by Colin Firth. However, the film is not quite hagiography. Wilde is irascible, hedonistic, and has a type – whether it’s Bosie, the French youth Jean, or the many young “rent boys” (male prostitutes) Everett must eye up, all the men who catch Wilde’s attention are uncomfortably young for a modern audience. He cannot resist a reunion with Bosie, and the audience sees how their unstable, off-again on-again relationship consumes Wilde’s personal life even after his imprisonment. In his own words: “I love him as I always did, with a sense of tragedy and ruin.” Bosie is long gone by the end of Oscar’s life. The final flashback is to Wilde singing in a French tavern, lively and inebriated, leaving us to ponder the nature of the legend and legacy which live on.