I won't give away the plot here. All I will say is that two people both claim to be Ernest, and it leads to complications.
Oscar Wilde was incredibly talented. His verbal comedy, his farces, his criticisms of the absurd aspects of the upper class, their superficiality, and lack of moral basis for their values. This movie comes out 107 years after the first performance of the original. It's incredible how much of what he pointed out still hasn't changed, given how different the world looks, in many respects, over a century later.
When you adapt a play into a film, you have to find a good balance, between staying true to the original physical limitations of the stage, and delivering a visual experience expected by the theatre going public. This does quite a good job at it. You can easily see how this was originally on sets, while the cinematography and editing are used to add little touches, such as reaction shots, without getting distracted from the words and acting, given that those are key to making the whole thing work.
I recommend this to any fan of the author. 7/10
Oscar Wilde was incredibly talented. His verbal comedy, his farces, his criticisms of the absurd aspects of the upper class, their superficiality, and lack of moral basis for their values. This movie comes out 107 years after the first performance of the original. It's incredible how much of what he pointed out still hasn't changed, given how different the world looks, in many respects, over a century later.
When you adapt a play into a film, you have to find a good balance, between staying true to the original physical limitations of the stage, and delivering a visual experience expected by the theatre going public. This does quite a good job at it. You can easily see how this was originally on sets, while the cinematography and editing are used to add little touches, such as reaction shots, without getting distracted from the words and acting, given that those are key to making the whole thing work.
I recommend this to any fan of the author. 7/10