This was a fun chick flick that also pulled my two guys (boyfriend Rick and his 16-year-old son Phillip) right in. They love sparring with language, and I think they both spoke less during this movie than any other movie we have ever watched together, as we had to pay close attention to catch all the great lines that were being lobbed.

Rick and I especially got a kick out of Cecily’s relationship with Algernon-Ernest before they even met: They fell in love, he wrote her love letters, they broke up, they made up, he proposed with a ring, and she accepted (and she did his part, in all of it, unbeknownst to him). She was far more earnest than either Ernest!

I want to watch the 2002 version, to see how splendidly Dame Judi Dench plays Lady Bracknell. (“A HANDbag?”) And I’ve found the play online, so that I can better savor the dialog (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm). All in all, this is a lightheartedly complicated little romp of a movie.

[After reading posts by Jason and Matt:]

Yes, Matt, people really did talk like that in the ’60s. I know from first-hand experience. And they talked like that in the ’50s, too. I know because my oldest brother and his friends still talked like that in the ’60s. (They were squares, man, but they sure knew how to make their shorts blown and channeled.)

(on the one hand~)
Okay, you two. Lighten up already. Not every movie has to make us ponder “The Deep Meaning of Life” in order to be good. All the impossible twists and turns in this story are meant to entertain and humor us with surprise, not create any tedious accuracies. And this film was purposefully meant to retain it’s “stage” flavor. Just sit back, ride the wave of Lady Bracknell’s logic (and Dame Edith’s incredible delivery–shame on you, Jason, for not even mentioning her), and enjoy!

(on the other~)
I must admit that
after watching this one,
I thought,
why on earth
is this film
in this collection?

Can YOU answer that question?

PS: Every time I have ever gone to the theater and watched a stage play, I start out with this weird dread, like I’m right back in high school, and I’m just waiting for the painfulness of the performance to begin. Happily, the plays I’ve seen since high school have been professional and enjoyable, but I still have that feeling of dread when the curtain starts going up on Act 1, Scene 1….

Or the 1950’s… “Golly, Susie, you want to go to the Sock-Hop with me? That would just be the most extreme! You really get me, Susie. Not like my old man, he’s SUCH a square.”

I mean, c’mon….REALLY?

With “The Importance of Being Earnest” – I felt myself falling into the same trap. I mean, COME ON, do aristocratic people of Victorian England, the idle wealthy find themselves sipping tea and saying things like: “Yes, DAAAAAAAAAHLING, you need to realize that your marrying Earnest is of the utmost importance to the society upon which you reside and your stature amongst the elite within the backdrop of our environment.” (Okay, I’ll admit, that’s not a direct quote from the film but, hopefully, you get my drift.)

Now, I’ve never been rich and I don’t recall being very idle and I haven’t really studied up on Victorian England so right off the bat I have nothing to relate to in this film. I’ve been in love, yes. I’ve had annoying Aunts, yes. I’ve even traveled by train, drank tea, and have witty conversations. But this? POSH!

First, the film starts out as if you’re going to a play. Thrills… If I wanted to go to a play I would GO TO A PLAY. Of course the hardest part of adapting a play to a film is to find a way to “break out” the play into something a bit more, how shall I say it… “Cinematic?” Sadly the director does nothing with it. I think there are maybe two scenes in the entire film that are shot outside. One long winded tea scene is SET outside but it might as well be a back lot in Eeling Studios for all I know. I also noticed that the bird chirping really wasn’t that consistent. So, right of the bat, the film’s adaptation of a play to screen was the equivalent of setting the camera up in the back of the theatre and filming.

As for the story…you’ve got two well-to-do gentlemen, scoundrels really, who are in love. Well, one is in love with this one gal who knows him as Earnest. He spends his weekdays on a farm out in the country with his niece (or something) who knows him as “Uncle Jack.” There’s some sort of attraction there but then again, there isn’t. When Earnest/Jack confides to his friend Algernon (who also has a split personality called “Brumbrey” or something) that this gal is in the country, and that he has been lying to her about his split name – his pal, a rakish sort himself, decides to go track her down. Earnest/Jack loves this other gal but her proper aunt won’t have her marrying Earnest/Jack due to the very simple fact that Earnest doesn’t have papers. He doesn’t know who he really is as he was a baby left in a train station.

When Algernon heads to the country to woo the niece, he shows up as Earnest the scoundrel brother of Jack. When Jack shows up, he says that Earnest is dead but then, of course, he’s not. By this time his niece has fallen head over heels in love with Algernon/Earnest. When the other gal shows up engaged to Jack/Earnest she takes issue with the young gal as to who is marrying whom. To make this all simple, though, the two men decide to get baptized both with the name Earnest as both women have said very VERY clearly that they will not marry anyone without the name Earnest.

And then the old Aunt shows up. Hi-jinks (if you can call them that) ensue.

I won’t bore you with any more of this review. Suffice it to say, that sentence near the top that wasn’t a quote from the film but very well could have been? There’s a lot of that crap dialogue that floats about. Some of it is witty and clever. Some of it is stupid.

Everyone lives happily ever after. Darn. I’ve spoiled the ending.

What I liked:

The titles were fine.

The Aunt’s acting was good, she proved a good villain.

What I didn’t like:

Well… Pretty much all the acting was over-the-top stage acting.

The lack of “breaking out” the story just made it feel that more confining.

The inability to pull the camera back at certain times also hindered the experience.

One of the main characters is supposed to be (cough, cough) 28 years of age.

No subtext, no depth, no real surprises.

The women were shallow and stupid, the men not much better.

Dialogue.

Bottom line:

If I had seen this movie after watching something like, well, “Freaky Friday” or something, I might have enjoyed it more. Having watched while “Ikiru’s” artistry and beauty and subtext and story continue to wash up on my brain stem like a rolling tide, it just made “The Importance of Being Earnest” even that much more pointless.

A trifle. Don’t bother.