2002 Film Version Review

Elena's Post #2
The Importance of Being Earnest – Movie Review

The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Judi Dench is an enjoyable and witty comedy based on the play written by Oscar Wilde. The movie is similar to the play, with the lines being quite similar to the original play. However, there are added scenes, such as the beginning scene of Jack leaving the country, Gwendolen’s tattoo, the dispute over the bill and the scene with Miss Prism discovering the paintings of herself. These are all done to make for more interesting character relations and to make the movie more comedic. The movie does not follow the play chronologically; rather it skips back and forth between scenes. In the movie, many elements of the play are romanticized and almost seem to be over the top. For example, the movie adds Algernon arriving at Jack’s estate in a hot air balloon seems to be unnecessary. Also there are two incredibly romanticized scenes that occur in the movie, and it seems as if they were purposely meant to be over the top. These occur when Algernon and Cecily meet for the first time and are kissing on the lawn. The music, costume and setting all become quite elaborate. This also occurs at the very end when all four characters realize the importance of being Earnest. There are also many small changes that seem to be completely unnecessary. For example, in the book Jack says that he is twenty-nine but in the movie he states that he is thirty-five. While most of the changes are quite small, the movie ends with an incredibly large change. In the play, Jack’s name turns out in the end to actually be Earnest. In the movie however, Jack looks in the book and then announces that his name is Earnest. The movie then shows Lady Bracknell open the page of the book and see that his name is not in fact Earnest but that it is John. She does not say anything and everyone goes on thinking his name is Earnest. This change was done for comedic effect, but the original was already quite comedic with Jack lying the whole time about something that was actually true. However, the movie generally is quite similar to the play and is an entertaining movie love and deception.