A Good Woman

Only a true cynic would fail to get something from Mike Barker's A Good Woman, a slightly lifeless adaptation of Oscar Wilde's famous play Lady Windermere's Fan. Full of zesty barbarous language and wordplay, it reminds me of why Wilde is so revered. This adaptation ended up by turning me into a fan.

The film's setting has been altered to a lazy Italian village in the early Thirties, complete with all the matching cliches, languid mid-European mood music, stereotypical sunset-kissed architecture and a quickly glanced, suitably sombre funeral as an opener.

It is the story of a young married couple, the 20-year-old Lady Meg Windermere (Scarlett Johansson) and her well off husband Robert (Mark Umbers). A woman enters their lives, a notorious supposed man-eater, Mrs Stella Erlynne (a luminous Helen Hunt), who makes no bones about how she earns her living, accepting "favours" from well off men. And there are none more well off than Tuppy (Tom Wilkinson), a lordly man, married twice already - who's "sentiments lead to settlements" - who has fallen head over heels for Stella. The other gossip mongering lords and ladies of the village soon set to work on Mrs. Erlynne, setting the young married couple's ears aflame with cutting insults and superbly fluid language.

The Good Woman of the title, Mrs. Erlynne, ganders our sympathies immediately and it becomes readily clear that all is not well behind those piercing, wounded eyes. Early on, she is seen pawning her jewellery in New York, in an effort to leave it all behind, to head to Italy, where the "rich and famous" dwell."Poor, and infamous...close enough", she murmurs. The scandalous woman has more to do, than merely bartering sex for cash. Oh, much more than that is on her mind.

Her reasons have to do with Lady Windermere, whose missing fan becomes the quintessential McGuffin. Johansson is, without doubt, the weak link in the cast. She does not appear as a gentle-minded, innocent soft touch, with "no redeeming vices," which the movie would require, in order for the plot to mesh well. Then again, she is great eye-candy in her Thirties Italian fashion, pouring sex appeal into the pot with a ladle.

One of A Good Woman's most enjoyable traits is the social universe that has been created. Contessa Lucchino (Milena Vukotic) - along with her four dogs, reminds me, if only subjectively, of A Fish Called Wanda - takes substantial pleasure in plopping her nose into the affairs of others, violently stealing her ornithologist niece's binoculars for spying, and a grand network of colleagues and contacts feed her lust for information and hearsay. Then again, she dryly notes of the secrecy involved. "If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world," quoting Blaise Pascal. Or better still, Mrs Erlynne completely ignores the cronyism of the characters, quickly snipping Meg down a peg or two with, "If we're always guided by other people's opinions, then what's the point of having our own?"

If "people like to talk", then Barker should let them do so, since the best moments are when the characters openly share their witty and cynical views of the world. Along with the Contessa is another of Wilde's spokesmen, Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell More), a charming, witty and impeccably mannered cad and hypocrite. While cheerfully and continuously preaching the lack of desire to be with anyone, he makes it his life's work to seduce the vulnerable Meg through the posture of friendship. He's the kind of friend that men love to be with and women also love, until he's had them in his bed.

The real issue I have with the film is that, aside from some well-delivered barbs, much of the real charm of the story has gone missing. Also, it goes on too long (even at a faint 90 minutes), with a flabby and uninvolving back-end. Just when you want the Idiot plot to finish, it continues for at least another 15 minutes. Thankfully, the reason for the characters saying nothing, when honesty would suffice, is a good one.

All in all, it's a cheerful, well-produced film that overstays its welcome and makes little effort to transcend the material.