Artificiality and hypocrisy are important themes in the play; however, the film takes these elements and incorporate them into the character’s personalities and the way they develop through the whole story to convince a different idea. While in the play written by Oscar Wilde all these lies, and impersonations are a common issue in everyone’s lives in the film directed by Oliver Parker, there are the main notions in which the characters base on their romantic relationship and future lives.
One of the characters in which this change is more evident is Algernon. Since the beginning of the story the fact that he is going through a financial crisis is clearly established. In the play the stage directions are important to describe this: “LANE presents several letters to ALGERNON. It is to be surmised that they are bills” (I, 33).
Curiously in the film this is not only evident by the close-up they do on the “Urgent Payment Required bills” (2:13), but also reaffirmed by Lane’s words “And then is the matter of my unpaid wages, sir” (2:19-17), and by Algernon himself “Bills, bills, bills… all I ever get are bills” (2:15-18).
But,
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In the play at the end after all the struggles and lies he had experimented and said; the authenticity of he being Ernest cannot be doubted: “[…] Ernest John […] I always told you, Gwendolen, my name was Ernest, didn’t I? Well, it is Ernest after all. I mean it is naturally Ernest”.
Nonetheless, in the film everything is still a falsehood. His name is just John and not caring about this he decides to build his life based on something untrue. Becoming his final words “On the contrary Aunt Augusta, I’ve known for the first time in my life the vital importance of being earnest” (89:12-16); as a declaration that the only conceivable way to achieve happiness is by being hypocritical and artificial, which is also emphasized by the scene of all the couples being happy in a world of fantasy