A Good Woman | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Mike Barker |
Screenplay by | Howard Himelstein |
Based on | Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Ben Seresin |
Edited by | Neil Farrell |
Music by | Richard G. Mitchell |
Production companies |
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Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 93 minutes |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Box office | $6.8 million [1] |
A Good Woman is a 2004 romantic comedy drama [2] film directed by Mike Barker. The screenplay by Howard Himelstein is based on the 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. It is the fourth screen version of the work, following a 1916 silent film using Wilde's original title, Ernst Lubitsch's 1925 version, and Otto Preminger's 1949 adaptation entitled The Fan .
In 1930 New York City, femme fatale Mrs. Erlynne finds that she is no longer welcomed by either the high-ranking men she has seduced or the society wives she has betrayed. Selling her jewelry, she buys passage on a liner bound for Amalfi, Italy, where she apparently sets her sights on newlywed Robert Windermere. When his car frequently is seen parked outside her villa, local gossip becomes convinced the two are having an affair.
Robert's demure wife Meg remains oblivious to the stories about the two circulating throughout the town, but when she discovers her husband's cheque register with numerous stubs indicating payments to Erlynne, she suspects the worst. What she doesn't know is that Erlynne actually is her mother, who has been extorting payments from Robert in return for keeping her secret. Meg is consoled with the advice, "Plain women resort to crying; pretty women go shopping."
In retaliation for what she believes is her husband's transgression, Meg wears a revealing gown to her twenty-first birthday celebration, attended by Erlynne –wearing the same dress –in the company of Lord Augustus ("Tuppy"), a wealthy, twice-divorced man who has proposed marriage to Erlynne. Complications ensue when Lord Darlington professes his love for Meg and implores her to leave her supposedly wayward husband –an invitation she accepts.
Erlynne, having found Meg's farewell note to Robert, intercepts her on Darlington's yacht, where the two are trapped when Tuppy, Darlington, Robert, and friends arrive for a night of drinking. Robert is startled to see the fan he gave Meg at her birthday party; while Meg makes a hasty escape, Erlynne reveals herself and claims she had taken it from the party in error. Tuppy, thinking his fiancée was planning a romantic rendezvous with Darlington, ends their engagement.
Robert pays Erlynne to leave Amalfi immediately and begs her not to reveal her identity to Meg. Reluctantly, she complies with his wishes, although she returns his final cheque before she departs. On board the plane waiting to take her to a new life, she discovers Tuppy, who presents her with the fan Meg gave him; Meg has provided an explanation that ensures he realised his fiancee was not planning a rendezvous with Darlington. Erlynne accepts his renewed proposal of marriage and the two depart for places unknown.
Twenty-two people from Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Luxembourg were credited as producers of the film, with the closing credits identifying it as "An Anglo-Italian-Spanish Co-Production".
It was shot on location in Italy at Amalfi, Atrani, Ravello, Sorrento, and Rome.
It grossed $238,609 in the US and $6,639,233 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $6,877,842. [1]
In his review in The New York Times , Stephen Holden called the film a "misbegotten Hollywood-minded screen adaptation" and added, "There is an excruciating divide between the film's British actors (led by Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Campbell Moore), who are comfortable delivering Wilde's aphorisms . . . and its American marquee names, Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson, [who have] little connection to the English language as spoken in the high Wildean style." [3]
Derek Elley of Variety stated, "In most respects, the film is so far from Wilde's play that it's practically a separate work. Bathed in pastels, ochres, blacks, and golds, and easily moving around a variety of locations, it's like another slice of '30s nostalgia in the vein of Enchanted April or Where Angels Fear to Tread . Though undeniably retaining their wit, the Wilde-isms are finally more of a distraction, imported from another world and another genre." [4]
In the San Francisco Chronicle , Mick LaSalle opined, "There's nothing to dislike about this movie . . . Yet something is wrong with A Good Woman: The lightning never strikes. It's never quite alive . . . the process of literalizing the action, an inevitable consequence of moving a play to the screen, makes [it] less exaggerated and more somber than is ideal. But nothing can diminish the wit and the pleasure of Wilde's epigrams." [5]
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The film is well-intentioned and mildly diverting, but in attempting to modernize its story it has lost many of the things that make the original so memorable and not gained much in return . . . Despite its talented cast, the result lacks Wilde's trademark bite; it's soft and middlebrow, even though he was anything but . . . Although transposing this story to photogenic Italy makes for the requisite number of scenic vistas, it also creates a number of problems for the story, starting with the fact that Wilde's concerns about the restrictive nature of society don't play as well outside the rigid confines of Victorian England. Also sacrificed in this more naturalistic production is the brilliance of Wilde's artifice. The sharpness and crackling energy of his conception, frankly, makes a bad fit with the film's fitful and not particularly successful attempts to make these characters more well-rounded . . . A Good Woman won't ruin anyone's day, but it won't make anyone's either, and it won't get the great Irish playwright anything like the admiration his work deserves." [6]
In The Times , Wendy Ide observed, "There’s more life in Oscar Wilde’s long-dead corpse than there is in A Good Woman . . . spiked with as many pithy Wildean aphorisms as could be cannibalised from his other work and crowbarred unceremoniously into the flagging script."[ citation needed ]
Rotten Tomatoes reports a 37% approval rating based on 83 reviews with an average rating of 5.3/10 and the consensus that the film "lacks bite due to liberties taken with the source material, coupled with uneven performances." [7] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [8]
Hunt's performance was panned with the AV Club saying, "Helen Hunt looks embarrassingly out of place trying to play an infamous seductress." [9]
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The novel-length version was published in April 1891.
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed on Saturday, 20 February 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London.
An Ideal Husband is a four-act play by Oscar Wilde that revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. It was first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London in 1895 and ran for 124 performances. It has been revived in many theatre productions and adapted for the cinema, radio and television.
Salome is a one-act tragedy by Oscar Wilde. The original version of the play was first published in French in 1893; an English translation was published a year later. The play depicts the attempted seduction of Jokanaan by Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas; her dance of the seven veils; the execution of Jokanaan at Salome's instigation; and her death on Herod's orders.
A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde is "a new and original play of modern life", in four acts, first given on 19 April 1893 at the Haymarket Theatre, London. Like Wilde's other society plays, it satirises English upper-class society. It has been revived from time to time since his death in 1900, but has been widely regarded as the least successful of his four drawing room plays.
Wilde is a 1997 British biographical romantic drama film directed by Brian Gilbert. The screenplay, written by Julian Mitchell, is based on Richard Ellmann's 1987 biography of Oscar Wilde. It stars Stephen Fry in the title role, with Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle, Gemma Jones, Judy Parfitt, Michael Sheen, Zoë Wanamaker, and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles.
Dorothy Hyson, Lady Quayle was an American-born film and stage actress who worked largely in England. During World War II, she worked as a cryptographer at Bletchley Park.
The Green Carnation is a novel by Robert Hichens that was first published anonymously in 1894. A satire on contemporary champions of the Aesthetic Movement, it was withdrawn briefly after the scandal of the Oscar Wilde trial in the following year. Later printings followed and it has remained popular for its depiction of the witty personalities of the time.
Laura Rees is a British actress from Northampton.
Story of a Bad Woman is a 1948 Argentine drama film directed by Luis Saslavsky and starring the Mexican and Hollywood superstar Dolores del Río, María Duval, Alberto Closas. It is based on Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. The film's art direction was by Raúl Soldi. It was made by Argentina Sono Film, one of the country's biggest studios during the era.
The Fan is a 1949 American drama film directed by Otto Preminger, starring Jeanne Crain, Madeleine Carroll, George Sanders, and Richard Greene. The screenplay by Dorothy Parker, Walter Reisch, and Ross Evans is based on the 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. The play had been filmed several times before, with a 1916 silent film, a later adaptation by Ernst Lubitsch in 1925 as well as versions in Spanish and Chinese.
After the Ball is a musical by Noël Coward based on the 1892 play by Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.
The Ware Case is a 1938 British drama film directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Clive Brook, Jane Baxter and Barry K. Barnes. It is an adaptation of the play The Ware Case (1915) by George Pleydell Bancroft, which had previously been made into two silent films, in 1917 and 1928. It had been a celebrated stage vehicle for Sir Gerald Du Maurier. The film was made at Ealing Studios with stately home exteriors shot in the grounds of Pinewood. Oscar Friedrich Werndorff worked as set designer.
Lady Windermere's Fan is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It is based on Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan which was first played in America by Julia Arthur as Lady Windermere and Maurice Barrymore as Lord Darlington. The film is being preserved by several archives. It was transferred onto 16mm film by Associated Artists Productions in the 1950s and shown on television. In 2002, Lady Windermere's Fan was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Lady Windermere's Fan is a 1935 German comedy film directed by Heinz Hilpert and starring Lil Dagover, Walter Rilla and Aribert Wäscher. It is based on the play Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Heinrich Beisenherz and Ludwig Reiber.
Nevenka Urbanova was one of the most famous Serbian actresses.
Lady Windermere's Fan is a 1916 British silent comedy film directed by Fred Paul and starring Milton Rosmer, Netta Westcott and Nigel Playfair. It was the first film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan. A print of the film still exists and it has been released on DVD by the British Film Institute.
A Conversation with Oscar Wilde is an outdoor sculpture by Maggi Hambling in central London dedicated to Oscar Wilde. Unveiled in 1998, it takes the form of a bench-like green granite sarcophagus, with a bust of Wilde emerging from the upper end, with a hand clasping a cigarette.
Johanne Voss was a Norwegian actress from Bergen.
Francesca Coppa is an American scholar whose research has encompassed British drama, performance studies and fan studies. In English literature, she is known for her work on the British writer Joe Orton; she edited several of his early novels and plays for their first publication in 1998–99, more than thirty years after his murder, and compiled an essay collection, Joe Orton: A Casebook (2003). She has also published on Oscar Wilde. In the fan-studies field, Coppa is known for documenting the history of media fandom and, in particular, of fanvids, a type of fan-made video. She co-founded the Organization for Transformative Works in 2007, originated the idea of interpreting fan fiction as performance, and in 2017, published the first collection of fan fiction designed for teaching purposes. As of 2021, Coppa is a professor of English at Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania.