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3 October 2002 |
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| With a suitably heavyweight cast and a good story, one would expect The Importance of Being Earnest to be highly successful. And the film, based on an Oscar Wilde play based in Victorian England, doesn't disappoint. One may even say that it is wildly funny. |
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The simple enough plot is less a case of mistaken identity that mistaken representation. The film revolves around two highly eligible, but ever so slightly dishonest, bachelors Algernon Moncrieff (Rupert Everett) and Jack Worthing (Colin Firth). Jack lives in the countryside while Algernon enjoys the highlife of London city. But both occasionally tire of their social, emotional, and in one case financial, circumstances and venture into the other's world as as an imaginary character "Ernest". All is well until Algernon falls for Jack's niece, Cecily Cardew, and Jack in turn is entranced by Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax. What results is a comical web of deceit as all the characters descend on Jack's not insubstantial countryside manor.
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Colin Firth and Rupert Everett in The Importance of Being Earnest |
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While not a textbook copy of the Wilde book, the film is faithful enough not to offend too many purists. What the film does do is capture the humour inherent in everyday Victorian upper class interactions. With over stylised settings and rapid-fire repartee, the film a great vehicle for the subtle witticisms and wordplay that Oscar Wilde is famous for. And no one take better advantage of this opportunity than Judi Dench, who plays Gwendolen's mother and Algy's aunt, the formidable Lady Bracknell. Dench is perfect in the role and delivers every witty punch with the sternest face imaginable. Her obvious distaste for the lower classes is played out beautifully when she interviews Earnest (Jack in this case) as a potential suitor for her Gwendolen. But saying much more would give away too much for those that have been unfortunate enough not to have encountered the play before.
| VITAL STATS
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 Director: Oliver Parker
Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench
Running time: 97 mins
When two bachelors, Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing want to avoid unwanted social and emotional commitments they each pretend to be "cousin Earnest". The problem is that while Jack pretends to be Earnest in the city, Algernon is pretending to be Earnest back at Jack's country house. |
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A counterpoint to the stern and forbidding matriarch Lady Bracknell is Everett's Algernon, a hedonistic and irreverent character who pays high society and his relatives scant attention except in the crucial matter of getting his outstanding bills settled by them. The dashing Everett is just as perfect for his role as is Dench for hers, and plays the freewheeling Algy with enough subtlety to make him endearing while making the equally dishonest Jack look positively straight laced. In comparison with Dench and Everett, the other characters fall a little by the wayside. Firth's Jack is very good but not nearly as memorable as Algernon. And Reese Witherspoon is sweet as the precocious Cecily but frankly just a little out of place in this quick-witted and fast-paced comedy. Frances O'Connor (Gwendolen) is by no means the funniest of characters in the film, but is completely believable as the Victorian young lady.
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Frances O'Connor and Reese Witherspoon |
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But what makes the film is the underlying elements: the subtle poking of fun at the upper classes, the humour in the absurdness of Victorian life and the ever-so-slightly camp presentation of the relationship between Jack and Algernon. No movie based on a play by Oscar Wilde would be complete without an acknowledgement of the homosexual, and the film does it in an admirable way with some of the more memorable scenes in the film involving the two young suitors fighting over a bowl of muffins and a handful of flowers. There are few downsides to this film but the tattoo episode jars a little and adds little to the storyline. And the scenes in which "angels" appear to serenade Cecily and Algernon are inoffensive but slightly misplaced. Unless of course you also think that the angels look little like men with bad wigs, which adds a whole new dimension to their role. The Importance of Being Earnest is well worth the time. It is not heavy viewing by any means and may even introduce a new generation to the brilliance of Wilde. More movie reviews:
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