The Unseen Movie Review

A Good Woman

Oscar Wilde is always a good option for anyone planning a film. His convoluted yet accessible stories and wit-laden dialogue simply refuse to grow old or tired. In the last few years we’ve seen excellent versions of The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband, both starring Rupert Everett, and now it is the turn of Lady Windermere’s Fan to get the big-screen treatment – albeit under a different name and without Everett among the cast.

It must be said, at first glance it looks like they’ve missed a trick. Why the name change? Lady Windermere’s Fan must still have some recognition value, surely? And even if he is the wrong age for them all, couldn’t they have roped Everett in for one of the male parts?

Even with the alterations – the story has also been shifted from Victorian England to the Italian Riviera of the 1930s – this is everything you would expect from a film based on a Wilde play: sumptuous sets, sparkling dialogue, glittering costumes, and a superb ensemble cast that includes starlet of the moment Scarlett Johansen, Oscar-winner Helen Hunt, Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson and a host of lesser names putting in decent turns. Add to that Wilde’s trademark ability to uncover timeless truths about relationships and human nature, and it is easy to see not only why this story still holds appeal more than a century after it was written, but also why the number of screen adaptations of it already runs into double figures.

Johansen is Lady Windermere, one half of the most popular young couple in the ex-pat Riviera society, yet pursued by another man; Hunt is gracefully aging seductress Mrs. Erlynne, out in Italy to attempt to wrangle her way into the high life. Deviousness abounds, with twists and surprises aplenty – assuming you are unfamiliar with the original play, that is.

The only slight trouble is that Wilde’s dialogue tends to work best at pace – rapid-fire quips and pithy observations rattled off almost as if the characters haven’t really got time to think. Although the performances here are all decent – with Tom Wilkinson in particular standing out as Lord “Tuppy” Augustus – both Hunt and Johansen seem to specialise in speaking their lines in a slow drawl, as if almost bored. While this may add a certain realism in places, this is a Wilde play – reality here is meant to be heightened, exaggerated, almost a parody. There’s something not quite right with this version of the tale.

Even so, the typical Merchant Ivory-style costume drama feel that anyone going to a film like this would hope for permeates every frame, taken a notch above by Wilde’s dialogue – even when this has been toned down by the screenplay or the actors’ delivery. It may not be the best Wilde adaptation of recent years, and Rupert Everett may be missed, but it still makes for an entertaining couple of hours, and for fans of this type of movie it’s certainly worth a look.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM