Movies

Films like this need to be more widely available. It was showing at one theater 45 miles from my house, but it was worth the drive to go and see it. The script was witty, and seemed to be fairly true to the Oscar Wilde play (at least a lot of the funniest lines were retained). What a great cast! Colin Firth and Rupert Evert were both wonderful as rogues. I loved the "fight" scene!! As did most of the others in the theater, as there was lots of laughter all around. Reese Witherspoon did a good job with her British accent, and she and Frances O'Connor were both a lot of fun to watch. Judi Dench was marvelous, as usual. I highly recommend this movie...it wasn't really deep or anything, just very funny!

Interesting movie based on Oscar Wilde's play. Although it seems a bit toned down, it still is a very fun movie to watch. It has various plot twists, and where other playwrights would have stopped early on during the revelation of multiple Earnest, and then slap together some closure with a happy ending, this movie keeps on going, slowing stitching back the relationship together, and it keeps on going to the very end, literally up to the last sentence.The film has some very witty dialogue and interesting word play, although I do feel that the wickedest sarcasm has been mellowed down a bit, either by pacing or just edited out.

I understand that this play has already been filmed several times before, the best perhaps being the 1952 version. However, the liberties taken for this adaptation with flow and characterization were beyond what I could enjoy. A previous comment mentioned that the words were virtually uncut, but I beg to differ. With a running time of slightly over 1 1/2 hours, there was far too much cut. I don't believe I've ever seen a production that was shorter than 2 hours. I can never really understand how people can laud a playwright and then change his/her work. If you really think that Wilde holds up well today, why the need to "fix" his plays? And then there's the flashback at the end of the film involving Lady Bracknell that was way over the top. P-lease.