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From: Emmy
Category: Films
Date: 24 May 2005
A Good Woman has an obvious charm. The setting, 1930's Italian coast, is beautiful, the aristocratic English personalities and wealthy young Americans impeccably turned out. Visually the film, like the key characters in it, is a stunner. The costumes are fantastically designed, and sun-drenched Italian villas and coast wonderful as ever. In these ways the film hearks back to The Talented Mr Ripley.
Yet there is no other comparison between the two films. And while I haven't read Oscar Wilde's 'Lady Windermere's fan' on which the film is based, and therefore cannot be sure that the fault does not lie with Wilde himself, I tend to think that the screenwriter has sought to make up for his own ineptitude with words by stuffing the film to bursting with Wilde's great quotations which, in this context, become cliched and ridiculous. On top of this, the interaction between personalities is abrupt and unconvincing, even if you are seduced by the beauty of their faces and figures, and the glamour of their dress. Is this the fault of the actors, of the screenplay, or of both?
It's a shame, really, since the story itself surprises and provokes (some) thought.
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