As an aficionado of the works of Oscar Wilde, and the actor who gave him vibrant, tragic life in 1997’s Wilde, it’s a little odd that Stephen Fry has yet to appear in a film based on the author’s works. Wilde and Fry would arguably both enjoy the humor that, even with his first Wilde adaptation, Fry still has yet to appear – for in animated family frolic The Canterville Ghost he provides the voice of the eponymous spook, Sir Simon de Canterville. He’s quite happily been haunting the English stately home of Canterville Chase for a few centuries, but now faces a menace that no Elizabethan noble, deceased or not, should ever have to endure: Americans.
Three years before he would write a more serious Gothic tale in 1890’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, he spoofed the form and injected a very contemporary friction into its veins. The 1887 short story has the ethereal embodiment of stuffy British traditions facing off against colonial literalism and pragmatism after an American family moves into the mansion house and refuses to be put off by his chain-rattling and skull-related antics. Disrespected by the parents and cartoonishly harassed by their twin boys, he’s only taken at all seriously daughter Virginia (Carey) who may be the only person that can help break the curse that keeps him around the corporeal world.
The animated feature directorial debut of both Kim Burdon and Robert Chandler (writer/producer of The Amazing Maurice) is a light jaunt that’s mostly delivered in mid-tier CG and mildly overblown celebrity voice-acting. However, there are still some delightful flourishes, like opening credits that evoke the distinctive vintage British Rail tourism posters, and a flashback involving articulated paper puppets. Maintaining the period feel as a late Victorian fantasy allows them to retain a purer version of Wilde’s comedy of manners as Sir Simon navigates a world of electricity and transatlantic travel (although the story could probably do without Miranda Hart as a steampunk Ghostbuster), while Virginia absorbs a little Old World gentility.
While the youngest audiences might find some charm in its broader comedy, the version of The Canterville Ghost may be most appreciated by tweens with a flair from romance and grandeur. Plus, there will be some adults who will take a soupçon of pleasure from hearing Fry reunited with his old comedy partner Hugh Laurie as a mysterious gardener. And, as they say, a bit of Fry and Laurie does you good.
This article appears in October 20 • 2023.
