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But Minnie Driver -- aside from the fact that the upswept hair worn by the women characters does little to flatter her -- is far more annoying. Her idea of playing a spirited young woman consists of nothing more than turning her nose up in the air and reeling off her lines in staccato blips as if she hadn't a care in the world -- she's like a willful child popping the heads off daisies.

Which makes it all the more miraculous and wonderful that Everett makes us believe -- as sure as the moon hangs in the sky -- that he's stone in love with her. When she turns on her heel and walks away from him, the self-congratulatory sparkle in his eyes melts into a special brand of agony. One of Everett's first lines in the movie -- his way of greeting the day, after a curvy, anonymous paramour has excused herself from his bed -- is to lament all the social obligations he has to meet that day: "Distressingly little time for sloth or idleness." But because Everett's Lord Goring is so full of words, and always just the right ones, it nearly crushes you when he finds himself at a loss for them, as he is when he ultimately confesses his love to Mabel.

An Ideal Husband Directed by Oliver Parker Starring Jeremy Northam, Rupert Everett, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore

It's also, to Everett's credit, just funny enough: He knows the joke has to be on him. But then Everett -- who seemed, for a time, to have settled into a groove of acceptable but dull performances until he almost single-handedly salvaged the dreadful "My Best Friend's Wedding" -- has become a marvelously intuitive and, for all his innate elegance, inextinguishably alive actor. When he delivers a line, there are a million cues to listen for and look at: the wicked arch of his eyebrows, the polished-rosewood timbre of his voice, the way his lips often seem to be curved protectively around an intimate secret. He captures the essence of traditional English understatement, but even more important, he shows that there can be a weirdly simmering warmth just beneath its surface -- it's not necessarily about coolness or unflappability. His performance as Lord Goring is so delicately shaded, so prickly-plush, it's almost enough to make you forget that his profile could be the eighth natural wonder of the world.

Almost.
salon.com | June 25, 1999

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