MBunge I'll leave to others the question of whether this is a true and faithful adaptation of Oscar Wilde's great play. What concerns me is whether this work stands on its own merits and I'm happy to say it does. With a setting like Jane Austin, star crossed lovers like Shakespeare and mistaken identities like Three's Company, The Importance of Being Earnest is a delightfully funny truffle. The acting is light and wonderfully mannered. The direction opens things up without getting lost in the scenery. Wilde's wit is always distracting. Aside from Rupert Everett glowering at inopportune moments, I can't find much wrong with this film.Jack Worthing (Colin Firth) is a country gentleman in turn of the century England with a beautiful young ward (Reese Witherspoon) and an odd vice. Whenever Jack goes to London to see his old friend Algy Moncrieff (Rupert Everett), Jack pretends to be his own non-existent younger brother named Ernest. Whereas Jack in the country is proper beyond proper, Ernest in the city is almost as big a scoundrel and Algy. Ernest is also very much in love with Algy's spirited cousin Gwendolen (Frances O'Connor), but the imperious Aunt Augusta (Judi Dench) stands in the way of any romance. Though Ernest/Jack is a man of means, Aunt Augusta can't overlook his lack of family. Jack, you see, is an orphan and was discovered as a baby in a handbag left in the cloakroom of a railway station.Hold on, because things just get more complicated from here. Algy heads out to Jack's country estate and passes himself off as the fictitious Ernest in order to woo Jack's ward. Jack's none to happy to be forced into going along with the deception, especially when Gwendolen sends word that she's coming to the country to be with her Ernest. Two men trying to be the same man who doesn't exist turns out to be too much to manage and Jack and Algy are left to try and win again the hearts of the women they love, only to have Aunt Augusta show up and throw another spanner into the machine.From the schoolgirl fantasies of Jack's ward to Algy's efforts at avoiding his creditors to Colin Firth's adorable turn on the banjo, this is one of those movies at which you can't stop smiling. It does enough to establish the strict social mores of its setting but doesn't hesitate to indulge in entertaining anachronisms, like Algy playing a mean ragtime on the piano. With Judi Dench superbly playing the implacable force driving the other characters to exasperation, the comedic energy of the story never settles in one place long enough to get bogged down in any details of realism or plausibility.I will say The Importance of Being Earnest is perhaps the best instruction into why Rupert Everett didn't become as big a star as his talent warranted. Much like the young Alec Baldwin, there's something off putting about him on screen. When Algy acts the cad, Everett can play that perfectly. When he has to moon over Jack's ward, Everett never looks, sounds or feels quite right.Watching this has made me want to go out and see both a stage production of the play and check out the original big screen adaptation from 1952. That's about the highest compliment you can give a film like The Important of Being Earnest and I hand it out with no reservations.

pc95 "The Importance of Being Ernest" requires quite a bit of patience to endure it's first half or so until it more or less redeems itself with a quite entertaining second. Yes the earlier parts seem random hit and miss scenes with little motivation and rambling. However it begins to come into focus more, and a strong ensemble cast for the most part carries the movie in an undeniably British way even with Witherspoon along for the ride so to speak. Judi Dench hits her part right on as she does so well as a duchess type queen-bee bossy and befitting as ever. With the whole cast together for the last 20 min, the director, writers, and film-makers pull the movie up charmingly. So this comedy of destiny and family is a bit of mix, but overall on the good side of things....worth a look.

treeline1 In Victorian England, two young ladies are convinced they can only fall in love with men named "Earnest," so wealthy Jack (Colin Firth) and his scoundrel friend Algernon (Rupert Everett) adopt that name and the result is unrestrained hilarity. (NOT.) This misguided version of Oscar Wilde's well-loved stage play suffers from poor direction at every turn. The sets and costumes are too brightly colored, the actors are too tanned and robust, and their mannerisms are so distinctly modern that one never believes it's the 1890s. One really vulgar addition to the original has two characters getting their beloved's names tattooed, colorfully, on their bums. *shudder* Colin Firth and Rupert Everett are both handsome, but they don't capture the period and they often mumble, which is unforgivable since the language is the best part of the show. The two young ladies are sadly miscast: Although Reese Witherspoon does a respectable English accent, she has to work so hard at it that it's distracting and she looks very 21st century. Frances O'Connor as Jack's love interest is pushy and unlikable. The real star of the film is Judi Drench who displays the perfect regal elegance and snobbiness her part requires.The movie is pretty boring until the last 30 minutes, when all the (supposed) wackiness of two men calling themselves "Earnest" finally starts to make sense and several coincidences pay off. Overall, however, this dismal reworking of a hilarious play has neither wit nor humor.

patender000 Earnest (Firth) lives in the country. Only in the country he is known as Jack. His family in the country believes he has a brother named Earnest, whom he goes up to the city to see because he's always getting into trouble and constantly needs his older brother's aid... Jack (or Earnest) returns from the city to inform those in the country that his brother, Earnest, died of a severe chill. The response to this woeful news is "what a good lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it!" But woe is me! Look! There is Earnest (the brother supposedly dead) in the rose garden (which would be Earnest's (or Jack's) friend, Algy (Everett), who went down to the country to meet Earnest's ward, Cecile (Witherspoon)by saying that he was Earnest's (or Jack's) younger brother Earnest (or rather, Algy)). Algy has invented a sick friend known as Bunbury, so he could escape to the country to see Earnest's (or Jack's) ward, Cecile. At the end of the movie, this Mr. Bunbury seems to have quite 'exploded' due to the wishes of his doctors...I trust you are thoroughly confused! This is a mild taste of the humor in this amazing comedy. It is undoubtedly one of my favorites! I thoroughly enjoyed it! And found it quite diverting...and I constantly quote it's witty script."To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." "Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink." "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square." ....and many more! Most entertaining!