In his second adaptation of an Oscar Wilde play, writer-director Oliver Parker (AN IDEAL HUSBAND) assembles a peerless cast to engage in this witty comedy of manners and mistaken identity. In 1890s London, rakish Algernon Montcrieff (Rupert Everett, who also starred in HUSBAND) runs into his friend, Jack Worthing (Colin Firth), who is in town to propose marriage to Algy's wildly romantic cousin, Gwendolen (Frances O'Connor). When returning a cigarette case to Jack, Algy reads the inscription, and discovers his friend has two secrets. Jack has created a devilish younger brother/alter ego called... "Ernest" to hide his own misdeeds, and has a beautiful young ward named Cecily (Reese Witherspoon), whom he wants to keep clear of the roguish Algy. While Jack deals with the large obstacle standing between him and Gwendolen--namely, her mother, the imposing Lady Bracknell (a wonderfully imperious Judi Dench)--Algy devises a way to meet Cecily. The confusion and hilarity come to a peak when Algy arrives at Jack's country manor posing as Ernest in order to woo Cecily, and Gwendolen runs away to the country to be with Jack--whom she knows as Ernest. The stellar cast and Wilde's clever words make for genuine entertainment.
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Importance of Being Earnest, The
Although Oliver Parker has already scripted and directed a successful Wilde adaptation, this second attempt is not up to the first. The additional dialogue screams out from the original, and is anachronistic and unsubtle. Judi Dench's Lady Bracknell is a brilliant tour-de-force and challenges the original glittering performance by Edith Evans in the 1952 film. This apart, everyone else disappoints. This is no mean feat when you have a cast that should have shone. I recommend going back to to the Anthony Asquith 1952 version to see Wilde at his trenchant, pithy best, performed by a superlative cast, including Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism.
Since Oliver Parker so successfully directed and adapted Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband to the screen in 1999, there was every reason to hope that he would do the same with The Importance of Being Earnest. But this time he chose not to stick with the visual elegance and crisp, taut direction that worked so well the first time around, taking a freer and easier approach that's at odds with Wilde's epigrammatic dialogue and tight construction.
After a steady start, this Earnest commences losing energy and pace, so crucial to keeping Wilde alive, and the film tends to meander until it begins to build tension again for its hilariously intricate denouement.
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