David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

2/10/13

The Importance of Lying

            While I was watching “The Importance of Being Earnest”, I recognized some of the dialogue, and I knew some of the scenes I had to have seen in another movie, because I hadn’t seen this film before. Trying to think of it was racking my brain, but I finally recognized that a few of the scenes from this film were in Mary Jane Watsons’ play in “Spider-Man 2”. But anyway, I didn’t find myself laughing a lot during this movie. If I were to rate it I’d give it two-and-a-half out of four stars. All the Shakespearean talking made it hard to understand what, exactly, people were saying, and it made intended jokes harder to laugh at because by the time you understand that it was supposed to be a joke… the joke is over and not funny anymore. I’m sure if I watched it again I would get more from it, but I won’t.

            Rupert Everetts’ character, “Algy”, was quite annoying, because of his accent, but he seemed to grow on me and became one of my favorite characters. His brother, John, doesn’t have enough character quirks to be as prominent as he was in the story line. The funniest thing John does is lie to Gwendolen saying that his name is Earnest. Gender roles played a big role in the film. The two main women, Gwendolen and Cecily, played the classic fairy-tale princess, that want a prince-charming named Earnest. This concept is very prominent in Cecily, who is always daydreaming about a knight in shining armor coming to sweep her off her feet. The two main men, Jong and Algy, both lie saying their name is “Earnest” to get the damsel to love them, because the girls won’t like them unless their name is “Earnest”. So there is the importance of lying; to get the girl to love you, and after that you tell her the truth and then apologize until she forgives you.

            Judi Dench’s character, lady Augusta Bracknell, is a point of interest in this film. She plays a condescending queen that won’t accept anything below perfect. She never breaks character, which, obviously, is a key aspect in a good performance. Money seems to be the only thing that can persuade her. A good example of this is when Bracknell wants Algy to marry Cecily, who has a lot of money, but John won’t let them unless Bracknell agrees to let him marry Gwendolen. Bracknell doesn’t want Gwendolen to marry John because John doesn’t have any parents. But by the end they find out that John is actually Algy’s brother and that John is related to Lady Augusta Bracknell. So at that point Bracknell accepts John as a family member and everyone lives happily ever after. I didn’t think “The Importance of Being Earnest” was too special and probably wouldn’t recommend watching it.