Opinion

The Importance Of Being Earnest

Dir: Oliver Parker
Starring: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench

"Everybody Loves Ernest... But Nobody's Quite Sure Who He Really Is."

Jack Worthing, a well-established land-owning gentleman, has a dissolute brother in London called Ernest. Ernest's wayward lifestyle compels Jack to visit the city frequently in his support. Or at least that's the story. In fact, when in town, Jack is Ernest, and takes full advantage of the reputation he has created for his brother, along the way falling in love with Gwendolyn, the cousin of his best friend Algernon. But Jack's double life is on the verge of unravelling, and Algy is unfortunately helping it to do so.

Anthony Asquith's 1952 version of the Oscar Wilde play is as generally regarded as the definitive version, and rightly so, but if anyone could make a film adaptation that might unseat it, then Oliver Parker, who directed the excellent An Ideal Husband three years ago might be assumed to be in with a chance. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite manage to do so.

Where the various 'openings-up' of the drawing room comedy he applied in his last film worked to the benefit of the film as a whole, here, they're largely to its detriment. Algy's arrival in the country by balloon, for instance, seems to have been edited in from another film entirely, and there's a musical interlude that tries very hard to be winning, but simply induces cringing.

Which is a pity, as the performances and settings are generally of a very high standard indeed. Everett produces no surprises, playing a variation on a theme that he (and we) are very familiar with by now, but Firth, O'Connor and Witherspoon are all excellent, and update and broaden their characters very well indeed. Witherspoon especially offers up a take on English maidenhood subtly informed by her own American character. O'Connor, too, manages to completely obliterate the memory of the cold and unpleasant Monica from A.I., her last role, with a gutsy quality that is required of anyone standing up to Dench's formidable Lady Bracknell.

But it's the script and its realisation that causes the problem. Parker takes sole screen-writing credit, so apart from the dialogue that comes through from Wilde, he needs to take responsibility for its failings. There are far too many moments that interrupt the suspension of one's disbelief, and spoil the film's flow; the opening chase sequence, a music hall scene where for no good reason everyone present seems to be listening to 'Ernest' and Algy conversing, a scene of Gwendolyn being tattooed, the balloon, and series of fantasy vignettes that simply don't belong in the film, among others. This story would actually benefit from being kept small and intimate.

It's a terrible shame, and a missed opportunity, as there's a great deal in An Ideal Husband that suggests this should be an excellent film. One is left wondering if the success of the earlier film led Parker simply to try too much here. Having assembled a fine cast, and working from such reliable source material, there's very little else that can account for the overall disappointment of the finished product.