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Indie flix
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 30, 2002
A fluffy take on a classic
The Importance of Being Earnest (PG) (98 min.) -- Your friendly neighborhood Oscar Wilde purist (come out, come out) well may object to the multiple liberties filmmaker Oliver Parker takes with this adaptation of the play widely regarded as the 19th century writer's finest work. After all, what do tattoos on sensitive skin, persistent visions of knights in shining armor, roving pianos and can-can girls have to do with a rapid-fire social farce edged with social commentary, an otherwise witty romp subtitled A Trivial Comedy for Serious People?
The answer: Not much. Those elements indeed are nonsensical and extraneous, but not so distracting as to gum up the works of well-oiled comic machinery. Rupert Everett, so funny in An Ideal Husband, Parker's 1999 version of another Wilde piece, gets the bulk of the laughs here as Algernon Moncrieff, a dandyish London slacker eager to nose in on the good fortunes of his hard-working buddy Jack Worthing (Colin Firth).
Each man has created a fictional character in his respective life -- Worthing calls himself Earnest when he leaves London, while Moncrieff uses a fictitious sick friend as a method of excusing himself from burdensome social occasions.
The white lies snowball into larger, funnier difficulties during a fateful weekend at Worthing's lavish country home, where the two buddies are forced to reveal their true identities to would-be spouses -- Reese Witherspoon, perfectly comfortable with the accent, and a flirty Frances O'Connor. The smartly chosen cast includes Dame Judi Dench as a caustic, quick-witted aristocrat, Anna Massey as a prim tutor and Tom Wilkinson as a shy but deeply romantic clergyman.
Wilde intended something more than fluff with his acerbic social commentary on class divisions, which has been adapted for a variety of film and television productions, most notably the 1952 movie. In the case of Parker's film, fluff will have to do. Grade: B.
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