Scripted by Alan Bennett from John Lahr’s biography of playwright Joe Orton, this is less an insight into the man than a story inspired by his murder by lover Kenneth Halliwell in 1967. Thus Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina rework The Odd Couple as a gay melodrama, in which the older, stuffier Halliwell comes to regret encouraging the amoral Orton to indulge his sexual and literary proclivities.
Director Stephen Frears ably captures dreary pre-Beatles Britain and its timid attitude to non-conformity. However, Orson’s theatrical success is downplayed to retain focus on how his success affected his increasingly alienated mentor. Consequently, the film loses its iconoclastic edge.