Ernest and Ernest

I must say, “The Importance of Being Ernest” was an exceptional movie. I wrote my expectations paper on this film and all of my expectations were met and much more. Upon reading the reviews I was not expecting this film to be as good as I thought it was after watching it. This movie did have humor but not slap stick humor. It was situational humor more than humor because someone said something and it was funny. That was one thing I liked about this film. The plot was very enticing. As the movie was progressing so was the plot. It kept me on my toes at least. That was something that the reviews did not convey very well.  Reviews are like flashlights in the dark. They can only show you sections of the whole picture. I am glad that the reviews I read did not disclose everything because it made this movie more enjoyable to view.

The highlight of the movie is when Algernon decided to be Ernest's younger brother by the name of Ernest and go to his country home. From here everything unfolds and the plot begins to pick up. In this part of the movie, there is a lot of rhetoric. For instance, they argue about this being the appropriate time to be eating muffins.

Some points of rhetoric; when Gwendolyn and Cecile were deciding on whether to forgive the men for lying about their identity.. They were using sound logic to come to reasonable and a logical deduction on whether to forgive Ernest and Algernon after misleading them on being different people.  The men’s responses for lying are intelligent and sweet but still don’t excuse for lying. The ladies then have a side conversation to further discuss their repentance.  But after rebutting they decide to forgive the men for their deed.

One thing that caught my attention was Cecile's fascination with knights in shining armor. There were several parts when she is day dreaming about being rescued, or being tied up, or imagining her knight riding across the fields towards her. The interesting part about this is when she is laying with the impostor Ernest/Algernon, she imagined him in armor. I'm not sure why this is part of the movie because it doesn't really make sense. Maybe it’s her dreams coming true and being revealed.

Another thing that was interesting was Ernest/Jack/John said he had a younger brother when in fact he was the younger brother the whole time. Maybe this was his subconscious being projected in the sense that he wanted to belong somewhere; ie friendship, family, relatives.

The last thing that I want to point out is when Aunt Augusta invites Ernest to her house for an interview so she may decide on whether he is suitable to be wed to her daughter, Gwendolyn.  In this scene, she interrogates him and writes down his responses. She gets to a point when Ernest says something that she doesn't approve of and begins to rip of his interview. You can't use a check list to make logical sound decisions. What if the paper has unrelated topics and misleads you that way. For instance, if you circle A and B then C must be true or untrue. I thought this scene was interesting because who would ever make a decision that way.