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Bookmark this pageThe Importance of Being Earnest (2001)
Director: Oliver Parker
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
You might suppose that Oscar Wilde's theatrical evergreen is indestructible. But that would be to reckon without the intervention of 'writer'/director Parker, who really makes a pig's ear of this silk purse. Witherspoon and O'Connor are fine as Cecily and Gwendolen. Firth makes a dour Jack, Everett is Algy to the manner born, and Judi Dench's Lady Bracknell is a no-brainer. But all the actors are up against Parker's mortal dread of being boring. In this respect, the film goes to the opposite extreme of Anthony Asquith's static 1952 version. Parker encourages everyone to skate across the dialogue as if it were a frozen lake in thaw. The briefest badinage is likely to incur half-a-dozen scene changes, each delivered with an unerring eye for the ugliest composition, a thudding cut, a forced bit of business here, an unwelcome innovation there. (A 'director's cut' runs at 101 min.) TCh.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Oliver Parker
Producer: Barnaby Thompson
Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Anna Massey, Edward Fox, Patrick Godfrey, Charles Kay full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 98 mins
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