What's Important about Earnest?

Holly Reese
2-10-13

  What’s Important about Earnest?

           I have never met a man named Earnest, and if I ever do, I won’t ever gush over his name. The name will always remind me of this film and that is not necessarily a good thing. The Importance of Being Earnest is one of my mom’s favorite films and when I told her that I was watching it for class, she went on and on about how funny it was. I’m not sure if it was her talking it up or my inability to pay proper attention to the dialogue, but this film was not especially interesting to me. The 1890s London setting and the old english dialect threw me off at the beginning. Usually, I am more open to something this unique, but for this film it was impossible for me to follow along. I think I need to rewatch it because I probably missed many of the jokes. It was a very different type of humor from Monty Python or Charlie Chaplin. The language was not the only issue I had with the film. I also found that I was not drawn to any of the characters.
          The two main women of this film, Gwendolen and Cecily, were very weak characters. I am not a feminist or women’s rights activist, but these women and their obsession with their men and the name Earnest was very annoying. Cecily, John’s ward, always fantasized about her fairy tale life and her life with Earnest-- actually Algy-- and fell head over heels for him as soon as she met him. Gwendolen was also obsessed with Earnest-- actually John-- and couldn’t make it in the city on her own. Both women tried to be upset with the men’s lying but they were never really mad. While I realize that this film was set in the 19th century and the main goals of women of that time were to get married and have babies, I didn’t like the women of this film. They weren’t funny. However, I did enjoy Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell. Judi Dench is an amazing actress (see A Study in Terror or a recent James Bond film) and I always like watching her on screen, regardless of the role.
            The men of this film were more tolerable. Algy and John had several moments of funny dialogue when they were arguing back and forth. Once I understood the premise of the film and the fact that they were both using the name Earnest as a pseudonym, I liked the confusion that followed. This film was very character driven through Jack and Algy. They made the film watchable, and the plot was very predictable and absurd. I like absurdity, but the humor here was might have too subtle for the strangeness of the plot. For example, the issue of Jack not knowing who his parents were because he had been left in a handbag. I can’t quite explain the exact things that I didn’t like about the humor of this film. I think it was either too weird or not weird enough.I never thought it was important to be Earnest.