THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
UK, 2002, 95 minutes, Colour.
Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench, Anna Massey, Tom Wilkinson, Edward Fox.
Directed by Oliver Parker.
For those who treasure Anthony Asquith's 1952 version with Michael Redgrave and with Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell, they should be warned to avoid this interpretation of Oscar Wilde's witty drawing room comedy. (Several of my favourite lines spoken by Gwendoline and Cecily are unexpectedly missing.)
Oliver Parker made a version of Wilde's Ideal Husband which retained its 19th century style and mood. Now he has made a version of Wilde that aims at an audience unfamiliar with his work. He seems to have based his adaptation on the assumption that audiences need to know that Wilde's life was not as refined as his epigrams, that it shared the Victorian aristocracy's surface respectability with an attraction to 'low life'. Now we see that Ernest and Algernon were frequenters of roistering clubs and, to our surprise, that Lady Bracknell used to be a disreputable gold-digging chorus girl. When Gwendoline gets a tattoo of the name Ernest on her posterior, we are a long way from former versions of the play.
Rupert Everett and Colin Firth are younger than Redgrave and Michael Denison were and have done what their director demanded of them. Frances O'Connor gives Joan Greenwood a run for her money as Gwendolin. Reese Witherspoon is a more knowing Cecily than Dorothy Tutin and is burdened with fantasies of Algy as a medieval knight in armour. Judi Dench wisely chooses to play Lady Bracknell in lower key and so makes her more of a character than merely a Victorian battleaxe. On the very positive side, Tom Wilkinson makes a superior Canon Chasuble along with Anna Massey as Miss Prism.
There is enough of Wilde's text to enjoy, but it is the 'make it acceptably contemporary' vision that may open up Wilde to a new audience but will alienate the old.
1. The status of Oscar Wilde's play? Its being popularised for a 21st century audience? Successful or not?
2. The classic film, the classic performance, the interpretations, drawing-room elegance and refinement? The actors and style of the 1952 film? Comparisons with this version?
3. How successful the adaptation, to the tastes of the 21st century, the garish sequences outside the drawing-rooms, the trivial and vulgar sequences? Realism for the audiences? The aspects of Victorian hypocrisy and Wilde's own background? The significance of the name Ernest and its being a code for homosexuals? The relevance of this in the 19th century, 20th and 21st?
4. How much of the play was retained, the characters, the lines? The significance of the omissions? Rearranging of the text? Cecily's fantasy of the Pre-Raphaelite? knight and its romance? Gwendoline getting the tattoo and later Ernest? The importance of Lady Bracknell and Judi Dench's style? Algy and Jack in the clubs, Jack's lies? The musical score, its 21st century style, the final song by Rupert Everett and Colin Firth?
5. The strength of the cast, communicating Wilde's characters and wits, delivery of the epigrams, the timing?
6. The title, its ambiguous use, the farce and the identities of the two men, the demands of the two women, the expectations of Lady Bracknell?
7. Algy as the man-about-town, his bills, at the clubs, the invention of Bunbury, getting Cecily's address, the clashes with Jack, going to the country, landing in the balloon, with Cecily, falling in love, the jokes about cucumber sandwiches and muffins?
8. The contrast with Jack and his being earnest, his ward, going to the clubs, his age, proposing to Gwendoline, dealing with Lady Bracknell, the proposal and the interrogation by Lady Bracknell, his satisfying her and her committee? His brother Ernest, deciding that he should die, going in mourning, meeting Algy, it being dismissed as a practical joke, their being seen embracing, their clashes? Friends and eventually brothers?
9. Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell, dominant, the height of fashion? Gwendoline becoming like her? Cecily and the fight, their declaring themselves as sisters? The two young woman together, their separate identities, personalities? Gwendoline and her travelling with her mother? Cecily and her lessons with Miss Prism and being bored? Imagining Algy as the knight?
10. Miss Prism and her lessons, Canon Chasuble and her friendship, the headaches, the sacristy, the preparation for the baptism, the confrontation with Lady Bracknell and the revelation of the truth about the baby, the bag, the railway station?
11. Canon Chasuble, his drawings, infatuation with Miss Prism, preparing the baptisms?
12. The story of the handbag, the railway station, Jack and his identity? His looking up the book - and, in this version, lying about his name and Lady Bracknell conniving?
13. The strength of the characters, Wilde's basic formal characters and the farcical situations with Oliver Parker adding background like the clubs, Algy's debts, Lady Bracknell's rather sordid past and pregnancy and the dance hall? The wit of Oscar Wilde shining through despite the changes?
