Web posted on: Wednesday, June 23, 1999 12:56:19 PM EDT

By Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Oscar Wilde loved to hear himself talk, and we're all a great deal richer for the self-infatuation. In day-to-day conversation, he was known to regularly issue bon mots that most people couldn't formulate after 12 rough drafts. Once, when asked by a customs agent if he had anything to declare, Wilde is said to have responded, "Only my own genius."

Wilde's written works are effervescent dances of verbiage, champagne bubbles that rise and tickle your fancy, even when they don't serve the scene at hand to any large degree. His characters speak as if their current utterance is the one that'll be quoted in their obituaries, although they shouldn't be concerned with scoring a goal on every kick. They're certain to get another whack at posterity as soon as somebody lets fly with an equally sparkling riposte.

Writer-director Oliver Parker's adaptation of Wilde's 1895 play "An Ideal Husband" runs wall-to-wall with the expected wordplay. But the plotting gets too hectic for its own good in the final 40 or so minutes.

Parker has lined up a terrific cast -- this is almost certainly the strongest set of actors to appear in a movie so far this year -- and they all have fun with the master's not-so-offhand insights into the self-serving nature of the human animal.

Jeremy Northam plays Sir Robert Chiltern, an up-and-coming member of England's House of Commons who's being blackmailed into changing his position on an important vote by Lady Laura Cheveley (Julianne Moore.) Cheveley stands to make a killing if Chiltern will back a deceitful bill, and she's ready to reveal the politician's darkest secret to his loyal wife, Gertrude (Cate Blanchett), if he doesn't fall into line.

Chiltern's best friend and confidant, Lord Goring, is a Wilde stand-in -- the rich young bachelor who's fully prepared to wile away his time on earth as long as he doesn't have to take a position on anything outside of his own social superiority. Rupert Everett plays Goring with just the right amount of dash and bile; you can't help admiring the guy even when he's wallowing in his own lack of depth.

Adding extra spice to the stew is Minnie Driver as Mabel, Chiltern's younger sister. Mabel is the flashy "modern young woman" who knows what she wants and goes after it, even if the stuffy people around her are taken aback by her forthrightness. Mabel is looking for a husband, and she's set her big brown eyes on the marriage-phobic Goring (see the title.)

There's not a weak performance in the bunch, although it's unfortunate that Blanchett -- who's very quickly ascending to the top of the heap among today's film actresses -- has by far the most conventional role. Gertrude loves Robert with a disarming lack of guile. Every other character is up to some sort of chicanery for the majority of the film, but Blanchett is the human heart at the core of the shenanigans.

The part's not poorly written. It's just that Blanchett is able to take care of Gertrude's emotional shadings by simply adjusting the telltale blush in her cheeks. It's pretty obvious by now that she can do this kind of work in her sleep. It would have been more fun to see her mixing it up with the other actors to a larger degree.

Moore -- another great actress who's gaining overdue notice with each new role -- plays the heavy, and she delivers her lines with a deceptively lilting voice that can quickly stab like a knife when she wants it to. She's given most of the best scenes, including a couple of semi-romantic interludes with Everett that are witty and vicious in the same breath.

Driver, as always, is Driver, and there's nothing wrong with that. The same broad-shouldered speaking voice and hoarse laugh that she uses to illuminate Jane in Disney's animated "Tarzan" is also put to fine use here. Her Mabel, however, may seem a little too modern for the proceedings. A lot of Driver's headstrong shtick, although always enjoyable to watch, smacks of a wholly liberated woman at a time when most ladies were careful to keep the full range of their ambitions in check, or at least under the cover of accepted outward postures.

Wilde's plays are always something of a balancing act, and, unfortunately, the interplay of the actors isn't enough to keep the film gliding along on a breeze for its entirety. Parker picks the pace up to an almost ridiculous degree as the interweaving plot machinations kick into high gear.

After a while, every scene starts to resemble the one in "Tootsie" in which Dustin Hoffman is forced to ad-lib an explanation of the previous two hours' deception in about 90 panic-stricken seconds. Suddenly, the cast members shut off the spark of invention, opting instead to roll their eyes and arch their eyebrows as they listen to the speechifying.

The movie tap-dances itself into a brick wall when a few well-timed pirouettes would have been a far more fitting conclusion.

There's not much of anything racy about "An Ideal Husband." Wilde wasn't one to punctuate his dialogue with the F-word, and a comely ankle usually served for sexual titillation. Children won't be offended, mostly because they'll be asleep after 10 minutes. Rated PG-13. 98 minutes.