Sunday, February 24, 2008

A Good Woman (2004) (nat)

I'd forgotten I watched this one yesterday morning. It was on Sundance and I was intrigued because it's apparently adapted from an Oscar Wilde play and I love The Importance of Being Earnest. Well, while this one made me want to read the play ("Lady Windermere's Fan"), the film was underwhelming, predictable, and very poorly acted. Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson star but they just yell all of their lines instead of acting. It does have Stephen Campbell Moore who was in Amazing Grace and History Boys and is both cute and a good actor.

Anyway, it's a 1920s-ish comedy of errors about a woman of ill-repute (Hunt) who latches on to the husband half of a rich couple while the pair vacations in Italy. The whole town thinks the two are having an affair but the too-pure-to-be-real wife (Johansson) misses it because she trusts him. Meanwhile the resident playboy wants to start something with the wife and gets the "truth" telling started.

I'm betting the play is much funnier and subtle but this adaptation is just clumsy and poorly done. I figured out the twist as soon as the characters involved were in the same scene (way early in the movie). I wouldn't bother with watching it unless for some reason you were teaching Wilde and needed a bad adaptation of the play. . .

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