The corruptive power of celebrity casts a long, dark shadow over Victorian London in Oliver Parker’s take on Oscar Wilde’s gothic horror, adapted for the screen by Toby Finlay.

Opening with the title character throwing his monogrammed clothes-trunk into the Thames in the dead of night, Dorian Gray stylishly evokes the social whirl and squalor of the capital.

The set and costume designs are impressive, much more so than Ben Barnes – whose portrayal of the much-abused hero is more wooden than the frame of the infamous portrait.

Emotion scarcely troubles Barnes’s porcelain face, and it’s hard to understand why the womenfolk of the city would swoon at a Dorian so lacking in charisma or vitality.

The lifelessness of the main character is thrown into greater relief by Colin Firth’s eye-catching supporting performance as his corrupter, who shoos aside virtue by declaring: ‘Conscience is just a polite term for cowardice.’ The beautiful and painfully naive Dorian Gray (Barnes) arrives in London, unaware of the horrors that lurk beneath the glittering facade of 19th-century society.

Lifelong hedonist Lord Henry Wotton (Firth) happily takes Dorian under his wing, confiding: ‘I envy you because you have the only two things worth having: youth and beauty.’ The older man sets Dorian on the path to sin, introducing the lad to sex, drugs and decadence, and to hopelessly smitten painter Basil Hallward (Ben Chaplin), who immortalises the young man’s good looks on canvas.

Every time Dorian falls from grace and succumbs to temptation, the painting decays.

Thus Dorian secrets the portrait away in the attic under lock and key where no-one can see how ugly he has become inside.

Dorian shamelessly exploits his eternal youth, indulging in every known vice, until he sets eyes upon Lord Wotton’s daughter Emily (Rebecca Hall).

Their affair, against the wishes of the older man, sets in motion a chain of events that will destroy what remains of the young man’s once pure and gentle soul.

Dorian Gray is Parker’s second adaptation of Wilde, 10 years after An Ideal Husband, and the change of mood from comedy to horror doesn’t suit the British director well.

There’s a total absence of suspense and, cheekily, Finlay’s script appropriates dialogue from the earlier film.

‘I don’t think a woman should be given anything she can’t wear in the evening,’ utters one of the characters here, paraphrasing the words of Mrs Cheveley.

Parker feels compelled to show us the picture up close as it moulders, and foolishly invokes a whirlwind of computer-generated special effects for the finale, completely at odds with the setting.

Barnes’s shortcomings in the pivotal role prove fatal, even with sterling work from Firth and then Hall in the second half of the film.

• Release Date: Wednesday 9 September 2009
• Certificate: 15
• Runtime: 112mins