Customer Reviews

The Importance of Being Earnest [VHS]

5 star:		(98)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I consider THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST to be the funniest play in the English language, and the greatest comedy in the language not written by William Shakespeare. The play contains one hysterical line after another, and one brilliant comic situation after another. For anyone who has not seen or read the play, this movie version will be a very excellent introduction to it.

The cast is superb, and could hardly have been improved upon among today's actors and actresses. Colin Firth is a natural to play Jack Worthing AKA Ernest, and Rupert Everett is utterly perfect as Algernon. Frances O'Connor, upon whom I must confess I have a gigantic crush, plays Gwendolyn, and Reese Witherspoon does a superb job portraying a young Englishwoman. Judi Dench hands in yet another strong performance as Lady Bracknell. The performances of all of these performers are completely satisfying.

Nevertheless, the movie fails to be the definitive film version of Wilde's play. There are two reasons for this. The first is the presence of an earlier, stronger film. The second is a series of bad decisions made in the making of this film. Taking the second point first, this new film makes a number of embellishments and alterations in the Wilde play, most of which are not very successful and are more than a little distracting. For instance, much of the first scene of the play is relocated in a number of locations, including a brothel, instead of Algernon's lodgings. Instead of arriving at Jack Worthing's country estate by rail, Algernon arrives by hot air balloon (!) and Gwendolyn arrives by motorcar. There are a number of scenes in which Cecily imagines knights and nymphs that are quite grating. And, worst of all, Gwendolyn has "Ernest" tattooed on her buttocks, a rather absurd addition. None of these make the movie more enjoyable, and primarily serve as distractions. There are also several scenes with creditors chasing Algernon, attempting to collect debts. All could have been deleted and we would have been left with a stronger and more interesting movie.

The first mentioned obstacle to this becoming the definitive screen version is the 1952 film directed by Anthony Asquith. As good as the current cast is, the prior cast was, with only one exception, much stronger. Michael Redgrave was, I have to admit, a much better Jack Worthing than Colin Firth. And while I adore Frances O'Connor, Joan Greenwood was probably the best Gwendolyn one could possibly imagine. Anyone doubting this should do a line-by-line comparison between the two performances. Take just one line, when Gwendolyn says, "I have the gravest doubts upon the subject. But I intend to crush them." O'Connor delivers the line excellently, but Greenwood, with her magnificent, deep, rich, plummy voice stretches the line out magnificently, caressing every syllable. Rupert Everett surpasses the performance of Michael Dennison as Algernon, and Reese Witherspoon comes close to matching Dorothy Tutin as Cecily, but not even the great Judi Dench can come close to Dame Edith Evans extraordinary performance as Lady Bracknell. The 1952 version also featured the inimitable and unforgettable Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism and Miles Malleson as Rev. Chasuble.

The one way in which the newer film surpasses the earlier film is in making the entire affair feel more like a film than a filmed play. As fine as the Redgrave-Greenwood version was, it was pretty much a straight filming of the play, with very little in the way of deviation or departure. The new film makes considerable effort to be more dynamic visually and to break up the scenes so that it isn't transparently Act One and Act Two and so forth.

I heartily recommend this new version of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, but I would also very strongly urge any lover of the play or this new film to seek out the earlier film. It may be more stagy and static, but the performances make it the definitive film version of this great play.

I cannot imagine a better cast for this film. That makes this dreadful travesty of Oscar Wilde's play even more appalling. Oliver Parker's hubris in thinking that he can improve on Oscar Wilde and one of the finest comedies in the English language is an outrage. He has cut some of Wilde's best lines, only to replace them with idiotic dream sequences, a ridiculous subplot involving Algernon's creditors, and even a hot-air ballon ride. Further, the production is heavy-handed and the music is just wrong.

All this pales in comparison to the overwhelming vulgarity of the scene in which Gwendolyn gets a tattoo, and fabricating a past as a chorus girl for Lady Bracknell. Mr. Parker clearly understands neither the characters, the play, nor Mr. Wilde himself. I can only conclude that his credit on An Ideal Husband is in error.

It is one thing to dig up Mr. Wilde's bones, but Mr. Parker has gnawed on them. He should be sentenced to a term in Reading Gaol for his overweening presumption and prohibited, by force if necessary, from ever again making another film.

Since I have not read the play by Oscar Wilde nor seen any previous performances of this work, I came into this movie completely unprejudiced, and left utterly delighted. I thought the film was hilarious; in particular the interplay between the two male leads, Colin Firth (Jack)and Rupert Everett (Algy). Judi Dench, as the austure Lady Bracknell, is of course perfection, and although less impressive, yet still quite good, are the two romantic interests of the gentlemen: Francis O'Connor (Gwendolyn) and Reese Witherspoon (Cecily). The tangled webs woven by our two heroes lead to some wonderful moments for Firth and Everett, especially when Algy shows up at Jack's manor to woo the fair Cecily. The scenes where Jack takes matters into his own hands had the audience roaring, and it was a treat to see Mr. Firth in a more playful role then is his usual.
There is also a sort of side plot involving the vicar (Tom Wilkinson)and Cecily's tutor (Anna Massey) which is also quite entertaining, and both actors display their humourous sides most credibly. All in all, a wonderful movie. I thought it was a shame, however, that the studio saw fit to release it only as a limited engagement. I, myself, had to drive nearly 200 miles to view this gem(well worth the trip, I might add), yet the lack of accessability disturbed me as it seemed to assume that only those in "larger metropolitan areas" would make the effort. Well, not only did I make the effort, I fully intend to purchase the DVD when it is released, and am looking forward to that date with relish, so that I may watch Firth and Everett over and over and over....

Any film that boasts, "Based on a play by Oscar Wilde, additional dialogue by" anybody at all immediately goes on my suspicious list. What, a screenplay ready-made by one of the wittiest playwrights of all time isn't good enough? Especially when the "additions" add unnecessary plot twists (Algie getting arrested? Lady Bracknell as a chorine? Hello?!) and, worst of all, change the ending. Rupert Everett exchanges his ebullient and suave persona, so admirably displayed in "An Ideal Husband," for a faded, dissolute air which he suddenly replaces with, yes, earnestness for the final scene. Dame Judi Dench, normally a comic delight, tanks all too many lines by stating them with enraged self-importance. Reese Witherspoon is lightweight--not entirely her fault, since the director cuts her lines and replaces them with bizarre dream sequences--and Frances O'Connor is simply unpleasant. Both women's roles were originally written as supremely practical EXCEPT for their strange fascination for a certain name; this movie makes that fixation the most sane thing about them. I am giving this movie one star solely for the presence of Colin Firth, whose modulated and occasionally exultant performance is as near to right-on as this movie will allow. Too bad he didn't get to deliver his penultimate line as Wilde intended; he would have done it well. Skip this film. Watch the witty and elegant Michael Redgrave version instead.

This film derives its humor from Wilde's witty dialogue and the farcical situations his players are put into. As far as this goes, it's good. But the film suffers from a poorly structured story line.

The opening act suggests that the principal action will surround Jack Worthing's (Colin Firth) efforts to find the true identity of his lost parents in order to win the hand of his beloved (played by Francis O'Connor). But that story line is quickly dropped as the second act devolves into the "who is Earnest?" farce at the country estate. The lineage theme is only picked up again in the last act, and this only by way of a miraculous coincidence.

While it isn't hard to follow the meandering story, the film doesn't set itself up to sustain the dramatic tension. Without that, the story wanders ... .

A good point of the film is that it manages to erase most of the signs of its theatrical lineage. The film does feel more like a movie than a play. Still, not as good as it could have been. And not as good as An Ideal Husband.

This is an inventive and artful production of Oscar Wilde's play, but I can confidently say that were Oscar Wilde alive today, he would be appalled at the misuse to which his play has been put. Indeed I think I feel the ground rumbling as he rolls over in his grave, and yes he is actually spinning in anguish.

Oliver Parker, who directed and wrote the screen adaptation, simply misinterpreted the play. He focused on the "dashing young bachelors" when the real focus of the play is Lady Bracknell, the absurd and beautifully ironic representation of the Victorian mind who was then and has been for over a hundred years Wilde's singular creation and one of the great characters of English literature. She is supposed to steal every scene she is in and we are to double take everyone of her speeches as we feel that she is simultaneous absurd and exactly right. Instead Judi Dench's Lady Bracknell (and I don't blame Dench who is a fine actress) is harsh and stern and literal to the point of being a controlling matriarch when what Wilde had in mind was somebody who was both pompous and almost idiotic yet capable of a penetrating and cynical wisdom (so like the author's). Compared to Dane Edith Evans's brilliant performance in the celebrated cinematic production from 1952, Dench's Lady Bracknell is positively one-dimensional.

The point of Wilde's play was to simultaneously delight and satirize the Victorian audience who came to watch the play. This is the genius of the play: the play-goer might view all of the values of bourgeois society being upheld while at the same time they are being made fun of. Not an easy trick, but that is why The Importance of Being Earnest is considered one of the greatest plays ever written. This attempt to turn it into a light entertainment for today's youthful audiences fails because this play is not a romantic comedy. It is more precisely a satire of a romantic comedy. Its point and Wilde's intent was to make fun of Victorian notions of romance and marrying well and to expose the mercantile nature of that society. It is probably impossible to "translate" the play for the contemporary film viewer since a satire of today's audiences and today's society would require an entirely different set of rapiers.

Parker's additions to the play amount to distractions that dilute the essence of the play's incomparable wit. Most of Wilde's witticisms are lost in the glare of Parker's busy work. Recalling Lady Bracknell as a dance hall girl in her youth who became pregnant before being wed was ridiculous and not only added nothing, but misinterpreted her character. Lady Bracknell is not a hypocrite with a compromised past. She is everything she pretends to be and that is the joke. Showing Algernon actually running through the streets to escape creditors or being threatened with debtor's prison was silly and again missed the point. Algy was "hard up" true and in need of "ready money" but his bills would be paid. Gwendolyn in goggles and cap driving a motor car also added nothing and seemed to place the play some years after the fact.

The big mistake movie directors often make when adapting a stage play into a movie is to feel compelled to get the play off the stage and out into the streets and countryside. Almost always these attempts are simply distractions. Some of the greatest adaptations--Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire from 1951 comes immediately to mind--played it straight and didn't try anything fancy. Here Parker seems obsessed with "dressing up" the play. What he does is obscure it.

On the positive side the costumes were beautiful and Anna Massy was an indelible Miss Prism. Reese Witherspoon at least looked the part of Cecily and she obviously worked hard. Rupert Evertt had some moments in the beginning that resembled Wilde's Algernon, but he was not able to sustain the impersonation.

My recommendation is that you not bother with this production and instead get the 1952 film starring, in addition to Edith Evans, Michael Redgrave and Margaret Rutherford. It is essentially true to the play as Wilde wrote it, and is a pure delight.

Oscar Wilde's masterful triumph of style over substance still makes audiences laugh because the timing and pace are perfect as written. This film has padded the story line, presumably to make the movie more visually interesting, but it's like taking a perfect souffle from the oven and pouring a pint of chocolate sauce, a pound of nuts and a gallon of whipped cream over it. The only time this film works, despite the best efforts of the performers, is when it lets the original dialogue flow, however briefly. At times the rewriting gets downright silly, as when Gwendolyn drives herself to Jack's country home, then talks about missing trains back to London. And she's hardly the kind of girl who get's her boyfriend's name tattoed on her buttocks.

It's pretty to look at, but not nearly as much fun as it should have been.

I have to say I had high expectations for this movie, & was sorely disappointed by the entire thing. In fact, I was very tempted at several points during the movie to walk out. Where to begin? Witherspoon is too old for the character. More important, anyone who thinks their dialogue is better than Wilde's should simply have written their own entire script. Some of the best lines of this play were cut completely, in most scenes, the timing was wrong. Trying to expand the backdrops for scenes was also, imo, a huge mistake (ie, instead of sticking to the interiors of the play, the boys go to a 'gentleman's club' & Gwendolyn goes to a tattoo parlour, for heaven's sake!)
Bad. The whole thing was bad, the timing was *much* too slow, etc., etc.,etc. Even Dame Judi couldn't save this bloater, & I love her work.
Ok, so I'm used to this play *as a play*, onstage, not messing around with any additional cutsey dialogue. But lord, it wasn't good.

I think Oscar Wilde would love the updated version of his hilarious play, "The Importance of Being Earnest". The movie, with a top notch cast that includes, Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding), Judy Dench (Iris), Colin Firth (Bridget Jones' Diary) and Reese Witherson (Legally Blonde), takes you on a wonderful trip of mistaken identity with two men, who have trouble telling the truth, a good deal of the time. When both men meet women that they truely fall in love with, their lies and false identities come to light. The characters spout classic, wicked lines such as:

To lose one parent is a misfortune; to lose two seems like carelessness.

I always carry a diary when travelling. I like having something sensational to read.

I think each actor did an excellent job in their roles. Judi Dench was, as usual, on the mark and Reese Witherspoon, as usual, showed us what a talented young actress she is. Reese is a brave young woman to take a role with all British actors, who have at one time or another played some of these roles or other roles in Oscar Wilde plays on stage. She continues on a roll as a bankable and capable actress. This is definitely a must have on dvd and I can't wait to own a copy. If you have seen negative comments about this film by critics, dismiss them. Go see the film. You'll laugh, guaranteed.

Rarely is there a movie that immerses the intellect in the intense sensuality of sensational sharp sentences. If you are so inclined, you will drown happily in the witty banter between the characters.

The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde's (1854-1900) final and most cherished play. It opened on February 14, 1895 at the St. James Theatre in London.

Wilde's sense of humor and creative genius is fused into a comic masterpiece guaranteed to "produce vibrations." The wit in this cinematic adaptation is superlative and delves into such ideas as repressed desires and identity. The text has been updated, but the moments of pure splendor are direct quotes from the play.

As secrets are unveiled onscreen, the intrigue only increases. You now enter a world drenched in sexual tension, snide humor, country manors with sweeping lawns leading to lakes, crisp lavender letters, spectacular sets, fields of bluebells, intimate and yet expansive English gardens (West Wycombe Park), lavish interiors, staircases decorated with murals by Giuseppe Borgnis, assumed identities, sumptuous costumes and true love.

London

Algernon Moncrieff (Rupert Everett) appears first as he is being chased through the back streets of London by his creditors. You are instantly drawn into the mystery of the moment and desire to find out more about this character. As he displays his talents as a Jazz Pianist, we know there is more to this character than a sheer love for the unfettered life. He seems to have a romantic streak and a devotion to the forbidden.

The Country
(Filmed in Buckinghamshire at the West Wycombe Park, an 18th century landscaped garden created by Sir Francis Dashwood.)

Jack Worthing (Colin Firth) is living a double life and is trying to find his true identity. He adds excitement to his life by assuming different identities. In town he is "Ernest the Bachelor" and in the country "Jack the Provincial Justice of the Peace." He maintains a bachelor apartment in Albany and a country estate where he has the responsibility of being guardian to Cecily. He escapes to London by train, to enter his own fantasy world where he can flirt recklessly with Gwendolyn Fairfax who has always imagined she would fall in love with a man named Ernest and give him her undying devotion.

It is interesting to note that in a world of society drama, audiences enjoyed seeing images of their own aesthetic paradise on display. In the Nineteenth Century, many Englishmen were in fact living the life of "Jack" in the country and "Ernest" in the city.

Jack seems to falter in the area of romance on numerous occasions and almost seems locked behind a door of somber decorum. Gwendolyn breaks from her chains in a "metaphysical speculation" moment. She represents the inner desires of all the characters, yet she is the first to take action in the direction of her dreams. You have to love that she travels with her diary so she always has something sensational to read.

In the meantime Cecily Cardew (Reese Witherspoon), a sweet country rose, has built up her own fantasy life complete with knights and the desire to be rescued from her prison and her tutor, Miss Prism.

She too desires to find a man named Ernest and willingly makes up entries in her diary and even writes herself love letters from her imaginary knight. In her life, "the essence of romance is uncertainty." Yet, she truly almost dreams her knight into life.

The story really centers around two couples and the meddling Aunt Agusta who is absolutely entertaining. Judi Dench perfects the role of Lady Bracknell and had played the part before. As Gwendolen's mother she assumes the role of protector of her daughters purity and yet she herself realizes that love transcends social barriers.

All the characters are living lives in which they at first seem to be escaping vicariously into their fantasies. The true awakening comes when they take action to bring these ideas to fruition.

After Ernest visits London, all the characters end up back in the country where the real fun begins. After Algernon is tempted by thoughts of the innocent and beautiful ward Cecily waiting to be plucked from her country garden, this story becomes a comedy of errors with clever romantic twists. The mischievous Algernon pretends to be Jack's naughty brother and succeeds in convincing Cecily that he is in fact "Ernest."

Lady Bracknell's refusal to allow Ernest to marry her daughter sets off a series of events which threatens both couples romantic dreams. Suddenly there are two men named Ernest. A name known to "inspire absolute confidence."

Once Cecily meets Gwendolyn they even read one another's diaries and give their men a delicious little taunting session that is both cheeky and wicked.

Oliver Parker includes a poem by Oscar Wilde as a song in this scene to subtly change the atmosphere from conflict to passion.

Serenade
The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark Aegean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! the purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!
-Oscar Wilde

Wilde was known for his wit and penchant for lilies. He was often seen strolling through Picadilly Circus in London wearing a shirt silk, velvet coat, silk stockings and a lily in hand. As a tribute, men and women wore lilies to the performances in London.

Director Oliver Parker has added a beautiful touch of flamboyance to this film. This movie is best viewed with an unprejudiced eye. Perhaps it is true that "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone." The less you know about the play the more you might enjoy this film.

This movie is a beautiful ripe peach dripping with delicious English wit.

Rather Delicious Actually!

~The Rebecca Review