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A remake of the original Ealing version of Oscar Wilde's play, "based on" Wilde's writings.
It's a great, biting comic satire on the manners of the upper classes; Jack Worthing is respectable, wealthy, and is courting Gwendoline; Gwendoline has a formidable Mother, Lady Bracknell, and a rather bad brother, Algernon. The interplay is delicious.
For those who know the original film, it is of iconic status (despite some rather static photography, following too closely the stage-based origins). Giants of acting forged the roles: Edith Evans, Margaret Rutherford, Michael Redgrave, Michael Denison, Joan Greenwood. Anyone who does a remake has an uphill struggle to do better.
In this version, the players seem to be struggling to avoid any possible copying of the 1952 version, and it seems that most of the time they are unable to act, or even to speak up. The single exception is Anna Massey who seems to know how to act a dramatic role.
The screenplay by and direction by Oliver Parker seems uncertain whether to update Wilde's words or to keep them, and the result seems to me to fall between two stools.
A few minutes into the film, Jack and Algernon are at a variety theatre and in the background, a trio of female performers are doing a comic song and dance routine; two of them are in rather transparent male drag. These may be the "Musical Butlers" referred to in the credits, although these have male names, and no "previous".
HF July 2003
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