Wilde

(Columbia TriStar)

In Brian Gilbert's brocaded bio-pic, Stephen Fry is all heavy-lidded insouciance and bulky lust as the enormously popular 19th-century dramatist and purveyor of bon mots Oscar Wilde, who falls in love with beautiful but spoiled boy toy Lord Alfred of Queensberry (Jude Law). Fry's Wilde is a tortured soul who melts at the sight of downy youth but grieves for his jilted family; still, it's a puzzle how a life of such epic passion and tragedy can have so little emotional pull.