Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The first must-see film of the year.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's late 19th century London. Algy Moncrieff (Rupert Everett) is a broke hard partying womanizer. His friend Ernest Worthing (Colin Firth) arrives in town to propose to Algy's cousin Gwendolen Fairfax (Frances O'Connor). He discovers that Ernest's name is really Jack. Jack's ward in the country, heiress Cecily Cardew (Reese Witherspoon), thinks that 'uncle' Jack goes to the city to take care of his younger brother Ernest. Algy has also invented an invalid named Bunbury in the country to escape any obligations. Gwendolen is eager to marry somebody named Ernest but her mother Lady Bracknell (Judi Dench) rejects him for being adopted and requires him to find at least one parent. Algy overhears Jack's country location and goes there pretending to be Ernest. The romantic Cecily is taken with the newly arrived cad cousin Ernest. Jack returns pretending that Ernest is dead and hilarity ensues. Then Gwendolen runs away to be with her Ernest which is quickly confused with Cecily's Ernest.From Oscar Wilde's 1895 play, this still retains some of its sense of a fun romp. The cast led by Everett and Firth is engaging and full of pep. Maybe there is a need to adapt the material more to modern sensibilities. It could improve by getting everyone to the country mansion faster and letting the confused misunderstandings stew a bit more. This is a movie going for light fluffy fun and achieves it for the most part.

This sad disappointment of a movie is what happens when you gather a group of top-notch actors together, give them one of the wittiest and funniest plays in the English language, and then put them under the direction of a film-maker who does not trust his material (which is a shame) and who furthermore believes that by tweaking it he may "improve" on it and render it more palatable for modern audiences (which is a scandal).To do director Oliver Parker some justice, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a lighter-than-air comedy of social mores and is -- in its very essence -- not cinematic, but theatrical, as was its creator, Oscar Wilde. The witty absurdities tossed off by Wilde's characters can only truly become airborne in a theatrical milieu. An attentively listening theater audience engages in a sympathetic act of complicity with the actors on stage, one in which "the delighting ear outstrips the wicked tongue." But a movie camera is an eye, not an ear; it cannot provide the necessary complicity that would allow Wilde's arch dialogue to levitate. Robbed of that complicity, the characters die and the dialogue falls flat. Perhaps it is too much to expect this play ever to be given a 100% successful cinematic make-over.Parker cannot be faulted for trying to translate this play into a cinematic medium; he is, however, guilty of ham-handed 're-writes,' unnecessary excursions, ill-considered excisions, and a feckless attempt to jam his cast into cinematic "dress" that doesn't fit them and that leaves them looking foolish.Watching this film, I felt badly for all the fine actors ensnared in it. I'm betting Judi Dench has a superb Lady Bracknell somewhere in her... but it isn't on display here.My advice is to skip this movie if you're considering seeing or renting it. Try the much better '52 Anthony Asquith movie with an amusingly rebarbative Edith Evans at the top of her form.

I will say this really had a crazy yet interesting story. It was one of those stories that are all over the place, but comes together at the end for a nice ending. The writers were very clever with it. Now the cast for me was just OK. They really didn't have me laughing much when they were trying to be funny. Rupert Everett and Colin Firth were the main characters and even though they were interesting in their roles, they just seemed boring at parts. Frances O'Connor was annoying and high class. So you could say she did a decent job since that is what her character was like. Reese Witherspoon was on the verge of annoying and at points I really wanted her to stop talking. This film was made to make you think and to add a little comedy in there to keep it interesting. The thinking it passed on and the comedy was near passing, but not as strong as a viewer would want it.

Earnest (Firth) lives in the country. Only in the country he is known as Jack. His family in the country believes he has a brother named Earnest, whom he goes up to the city to see because he's always getting into trouble and constantly needs his older brother's aid... Jack (or Earnest) returns from the city to inform those in the country that his brother, Earnest, died of a severe chill. The response to this woeful news is "what a good lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it!" But woe is me! Look! There is Earnest (the brother supposedly dead) in the rose garden (which would be Earnest's (or Jack's) friend, Algy (Everett), who went down to the country to meet Earnest's ward, Cecile (Witherspoon)by saying that he was Earnest's (or Jack's) younger brother Earnest (or rather, Algy)). Algy has invented a sick friend known as Bunbury, so he could escape to the country to see Earnest's (or Jack's) ward, Cecile. At the end of the movie, this Mr. Bunbury seems to have quite 'exploded' due to the wishes of his doctors...I trust you are thoroughly confused! This is a mild taste of the humor in this amazing comedy. It is undoubtedly one of my favorites! I thoroughly enjoyed it! And found it quite diverting...and I constantly quote it's witty script."To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." "Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink." "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square." ....and many more! Most entertaining!