A Good Woman (2004)
Average Rating: 5.3/10
Reviews Counted: 81
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 51
This adaptation of Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan lacks bite due to liberties taken with the source material, coupled with uneven performances.
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 18
This adaptation of Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan lacks bite due to liberties taken with the source material, coupled with uneven performances.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 106,963
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Movie Info
One of Oscar Wilde's most popular plays is given a new screen interpretation in this period comedy. In New York in the early '30s, Mrs. Erlynne (Helen Hunt) is a widow who lives comfortably through the largesse of several married men, and when she runs out of wealthy suitors in Manhattan, she decides to find greener pastures among the wealthy elite of Italy's Amalfi coast. Mrs. Erlynne sets her sights on Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers), a wealthy Englishman who is married to the young, innocent
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Cast
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Helen Hunt
Mrs. Erlynne -
Scarlett Johansson
Meg Windermere -
Tom Wilkinson
Tuppy -
Stephen Campbell Moore
Lord Darlington -
Mark Umbers
Robert Windermere -
Milena Vukotic
Contessa Lucchino -
Diana Hardcastle
Lady Plymdale -
Roger Hammond
Cecil -
Jane How
Mrs. Stutfield -
John Standing
Dumby -
Giorgia Massetti
Allessandra -
Bruce McGuire
Waiter Joe -
Augusto Zucchi
Antique Shop Keeper -
Shara Orano
Francesca -
Michael Stromme
Hotel Desk Clerk -
Antonio Barbaro
Paulo -
Valentina D'uva
Giuseppina Glove Shop G... -
Filippo Santoro
Old Man -
Carolina Levi
Dress Shop Salesgirl -
Daniela Stanga
Dress Shop Owner -
Arianna Mansi
Stella's Maid 1 -
Camilla Bertocci
Stella's Maid 2 -
Nichola Aigner
Mrs. Gowper
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All Critics (88) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (52) | DVD (4)
... willfully odd movie ...
Top CriticA Good Woman suffers from a staggeringly bad miscasting of its central role and from a cut-and-paste screenplay that substitutes random insertions of Wilde epigrams for character.
Something is wrong with A Good Woman: The lightning never strikes. It's never quite alive.
Wilde isn't supposed to be lovely, or charming. He's supposed to be funny, wicked, rude and as full of serious feeling as a lavender butterfly.
A Good Woman is such a dreary affair that it makes you wonder whether the last Wilde adaptation -- the critically lambasted The Importance of Being Earnest with Reese Witherspoon -- was really that bad after all.
Besides the consuming, universal glibness of its characters, A Good Woman is also undermined by some ditsy casting.
Lifeless
Sermonizes in the manner Wilde satirized; the movie bends over backwards to assure the audience that marriage and monogamy, the butt of jokes throughout, are just and right.
If you enjoy the charming wit of films such as An Ideal Husband or Enchanted April, you'll probably be Wilde about A Good Woman.
There's only one thing worse than being a period piece, and that's being an out-of-period piece.
Hunt, grievously miscast as the worldly Mrs. Erlynne...ends up looking like a once-fresh teenager, beaten down by the years, playacting in Mommy's oversized threads on a rainy day.
A bit of a muddle at the ending, but the performances are pleasant (Tom Wilkinson is outstanding) and the humour is quick and subversive.
While this film is certainly not a painful experience, it is certainly not up to the brilliance of Oscar Wilde's intent and voice.
A wet teabag of a movie.
Audience Reviews for A Good Woman
Super Reviewer
"A Good Woman" is put together sloppily with very generic techniques that add nothing to the subpar plot with some of the most annoying side characters I've seen in a very long time. This movie is not worth a watch.
Super Reviewer
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- Tuppy: Oh, I like a good read myself. But nothing too laborious. I don't want to tamper with natural ignorance. It's the key to happiness.
- Mrs. Erlynne: Do you really think so?
- Tuppy: Oh, absolutely. Good health, it's important but ignorance is the key. Too much knowledge and you're doomed.
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Why do modern directors and writers think they are smarter than some of the best writers in the English language? In this case, Oscar Wilde's great play Lady Windemere's Fan gets distorted, the worst sin coming in the third act of the film. In addition to alterations in the plot, writer Howard Himelstein interjects some of Wilde's random witticisms into the script; for example, there is little reason why America being the only country to go from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between should be included in the film. It's funny, of course, but out of place.
Helen Hunt does not deliver a strong performance. I often thought that Wilde's sophisticated dialogue puts Hunt out of her element, and Scarlett Johannson isn't much better. Obviously the Britons, Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Campbell Moore aren't similarly affected.
Overall, the source material is strong, but the film isn't.