


Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote the film is "an enjoyable, minor, lustrously shot revamping of Oscar Wilde’s play about the perpetually interlocked manners of love and deception…Everett gets all the good lines, but he’s daring enough to deliver them gently, with a knowing touch of rue." The film received positive reviews from critics, including Roger Ebert, who awarded it 3 out of 4 stars.

Cheveley's lost bracelet was removed, and the twists at the end are made more complex by the introduction of a bet between Lord Goring and Mrs Cheveley, and Lord Goring's need to ask the permission of Sir Robert Chiltern to marry his sister, Miss Mabel Chiltern. The plot of the film differs from the original Wilde play in a number of key respects.
