In 1890s London, two friends use the same pseudonym ("Ernest") for their on-the-sly activities. Hilarity ensues.In 1890s London, two friends use the same pseudonym ("Ernest") for their on-the-sly activities. Hilarity ensues.In 1890s London, two friends use the same pseudonym ("Ernest") for their on-the-sly activities. Hilarity ensues.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFinty Williams (Young Lady Bracknell) is the daughter of Dame Judi Dench (older Lady Bracknell).
- GoofsGwendolen is shown driving a car out to Jack's country house. However, later in dialog with Cecily taken from the original play, she mentions having taken the train out. Later, Lady Bracknell mentions them both returning by train, which would have left the car in the country.
- Quotes
Algy: Bunbury? He was quite *exploded*.
Lady Bracknell: Exploded?
Algy: [pretending sadness] Mm.
Lady Bracknell: Was he the victim of some revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation.
Algy: My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was *found out*. The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live - that is what I mean - so Bunbury died.
Lady Bracknell: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.
- Crazy creditsAfter the funeral for Bunbury, Colin Firth's Earnest is seen getting a tattoo of "Gwendolyn" on his posterior
- ConnectionsFeatured in Forever Ealing (2002)
- SoundtracksLady Come Down
Music written by Charlie Mole
Lyrics by Oscar Wilde
Performed by Colin Firth and Rupert Everett
Courtesy of Fragile Music Ltd.
And it's really too bad, because the portents for the production were - on the surface at least - very good. You start with a great play by a great writer, who was also a great humorist. It's probable that only Shakespeare penned more quotable lines than Oscar Wilde did. And even Shakespeare probably did not write so many that were funny. The cast choices also looked good: Colin Firth and Rupert Everett as the male leads, the two false "Ernests"; the formidable Judi Dench as the even more formidable Lady Bracknell; Frances O'Connor as Gwendolen Fairfax; and Reese Witherspoon as Cecily Cardew - Witherspoon doing a creditable "Gwyneth Paltrow" turn with an English accent.
A bankable American star appears to be a standard requirement these days when presenting an essentially British production to viewers on this side of the Pond. Otherwise, so the illogic apparently goes, few people "over here" would turn up to see it. Of course, James Ivory did very well a decade ago with superb films like "Howard's End", and with nary an American star in sight. One supposes that Parker can be forgiven for overlooking that fact: after all, he was preoccupied with revving up the editorial chainsaw to dismember Wilde's text.
The problem with Parker's approach to the play is that Wilde wrote specifically for the theatre. Language was his tool, and few writers have used language half so brilliantly. "The Importance Of Being Earnest" is a drawing-room comedy, one of the best in the repertoire, a very funny, extremely literate play about manners, attitudes and conventions in Victorian England. It's a clever and tightly integrated work, a small masterpiece, where dialogue begets more dialogue, wry observations and witticisms proliferate, all of them ultimately spun into a seamless satirical whole.
That's not to say that Wilde can't be made into a "motion" picture. Three years ago, Parker did a creditable, if slightly sappy job on "An Ideal Husband". Perhaps buoyed by that modest success, he felt he could take Wilde - through "The Importance Of Being Earnest" - to a new level. And he has. Unfortunately, the place he has taken it is so far below theatrical sea-level that oxygen is required for basic survival. In hacking the text to ribbons - it seems that almost half of the dialogue has been discarded - he has so compromised the context of the piece that the end result is almost incomprehensible. Think of it as the ultimate dumbing-down of Oscar Wilde.
A short list of items in the film that are astonishingly un-funny. Gwendolen Fairfax having "Ernest" tattooed on her ass in a disreputable London district. Algernon Moncrieff arriving at Jack Worthing's country estate in a hot-air balloon. Algernon leaping in and out of carriages, and climbing through windows, and scurrying down alleyways to avoid his herds of creditors. Algernon spitting food all over himself when he meets Jack at the country house. Algernon and Jack in a wrestling match over a plate of muffins. Jack having Gwendolen's name tattooed on his ass as the credits roll by at the end of the film.
Urgent memo to Oliver Parker: Oscar Wilde is not about slapstick.
It was suggested in an earlier comment on IMDB that if you've never seen the play, as written, you might find Parker's film amusing; but if you have seen the play, you probably won't. That's good advice. Happily, the original 1952 film is available on VHS, and will soon be available on DVD. It was directed by Anthony Asquith. Wisely, Asquith kept his film solidly within the theatre's embrace, even starting the piece with a curtain rising before an invisible audience. And he had an English cast that was to die for - Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, Joan Geeenwood, Dorothy Tutin, Margaret Rutherford, Miles Malleson. Asquith produced a brilliant film, a triumph of intelligence, style and taste, everything that Wilde and his admirers could have wished it to be - and everything that Parker's film is not.
A final note. Shortly after the film was released, Colin Firth gave an interview that was published in The Globe & Mail, a major Canadian newspaper out of Toronto. In the interview, Firth lamented that he lived in a society - England - that pretended to be literate, but in fact was not. The irony implicit in his comment is almost too delicious. I'm certain that Oscar Wilde would have loved it.
- trendell-1
- May 29, 2002
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Tầm Quan Trọng Của Sự Nghiêm Túc
- Filming locations
- West Wycombe Park, West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, UK(Jack Worthing's country estate in Hertfordshire)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $15,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $8,384,929
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $500,447
- May 27, 2002
- Gross worldwide
- $18,009,625
- Runtime1 hour 37 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1