Review: ‘Earnest’ offers up some laughs

Geoff Carter

Friday, May 31, 2002 | 9:30 a.m.

'Importance of Being Earnest'

Grade: ***

Starring: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Frances O'Connor and Judi Dench.

Screenplay: Oliver Parker.

Director: Oliver Parker.

Rated: PG for mild sensuality.

Running time: 100 minutes.

Movies times: http://www.vegas.com/movies/

If you've ever doubted that nature abhors a vacuum, head down to the movies today. It's not merely fitting that Oliver Parker's funny adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" should play in theaters at the same time as George Lucas' bloodless "Attack of the Clones"; it's the natural order of things. One film brims with wit and humor, while the other, to be kind, doesn't.

That's not to say it's a superior film. "Earnest" loses touch with its source material at times, has goofball fantasy sequences and a goofball score, by one Charlie Mole, that seems better suited to a Neil Simon picture. Nevertheless, it does have one attribute that sets it apart from nearly everything else in theaters right now: It made me laugh. Realistically, that's all we should ask of a comedy.

"Earnest" is the story of two friends living in 1890s London, and the modest double lives they lead. Jack Worthing (Colin Firth) is courting Gwendolen Fairfax (Frances O'Connor) under the assumed name of Earnest. His friend Algernon Moncrieff (Rupert Everett) courts Worthing's young charge Cecily Cardew (Reese Witherspoon) using the same name.

The reasons for these deceptions are too numerous and convoluted to discuss here, but the end result is that chaos ensues. (A friend of mine once suggested that all my reviews should end that way.) But since it's an Oscar Wilde piece, it's a snappy, dialogue-rich chaos, delivered as precisely as an air dart. Gwendolen's mother, Lady Bracknell (Judi Dench), refuses to let Worthing marry her daughter ("You will rise from that semi-recumbent position, Mr. Worthing," she snaps as he tries to propose). Algernon is arrested for his debts, and Cecily mistakenly thinks Gwendolen is trying to woo Algernon ("Earnest") away from her; it's a right mess, difficult to follow even with copius notes.

But that's not the point of the exercise. You can not care one bit about who's wooing whom (I didn't) and simply concentrate on the crisp sound of well-written dialogue spoken by terrific actors. "I do not approve of anything that intervenes with natural ignorance," Lady Bracknell says. "The best way to deal with women is to make love to them if they're pretty, and to someone else if they're plain," Algernon says.

It's a fun romp, thoroughly enjoyable even if you're intimate with Wilde's play, with which it takes many liberties. The author would likely have approved, in principle at the least. It's not about being exact; it's about being sincere. Or, in other words, earnest.