Tagline: Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.
Set in the 1930s on the beautiful Italian Riviera, A Good Woman is an elegant, witty, romantic comedy based on Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” A young couple’s marriage is put in jeopardy by high-society gossip of an affair blossoming. Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers) is accused with providing a secret allowance for Mrs. Erlynne (Helen Hunt), a vampish older woman of ill repute, whilst his wife Meg Windermere (Scarlett Johansson), courts the attention of Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore), a notorious playboy.
Set in the 1930s on the beautiful shores of the Italian Riviera, Lions Gate Films’ “A Good Woman” follows the seductive Mrs. Erlynne (Hunt), scorned by many as a ‘woman of ill repute,’ leaves New York for the Amalfi coast, where she hopes to find a new ‘patron’ among the vacationing aristocrats.
The mean-spirited gossip stirred up by Mrs. Erlynne’s arrival isn’t enough to dissuade the jovial, kind-hearted Lord Augustus (Wilkinson) from falling in love with her. But Mrs. Erlynne has already set her sights on the married Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers), a wealthy young American who falls quickly under her spell.
Windermere’s faithful wife, Meg (Johansson), is herself distracted by the flirtatious overtures of Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore), a notorious playboy. But when she learns of her husband’s blossoming affair, Meg resorts to drastic measures, with unexpected consequences for everyone involved…
Brimming with sumptuous locales and sweeping romance, “A Good Woman” is a sophisticated ode to Wilde’s legendary wit and wisdom, beautifully directed by Mike Barker from a sparkling script by Howard Himelstein.
A Good Woman is a 2004 American-British-Italian-Spanish drama 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.
About the Production
A tale of scandal, gossip and the vagaries of love, Lionsgate’s A Good Woman is an elegant period comedy based on Oscar Wilde’s play, “Lady Windermere’s Fan.” A hit when it premiered on the London stage in 1892, the play has since become a classic, helping cement Wilde’s reputation as one of the 19th century’s best writers. Now director Mike Barker and screenwriter Howard Himelstein have refashioned Wilde’s story into a sparkling romantic comedy set on Italy’s Amalfi coast, with the aim of bringing Wilde’s legendary wit and high sense of style to today’s audiences.
“I’ve always loved the play, especially Wilde’s language,” says Barker. “He’s so cynical and modern, and he tells his stories in such a sharp, satirical way. You often find yourself feeling a little guilty for laughing.”
“Aside from William Shakespeare, Wilde is probably the most quotable writer of the past 500 years,” says Himelstein. “Adapting the play was an opportunity to bring back the witty, romantic banter to movies that we haven’t seen since the days of Ernst Lubitsche and Preston Sturges.”
As in the play, Barker’s version follows Mrs. Windermere, a naïve, newly married young woman, who is thrown into turmoil when she hears gossip about her husband’s alleged affair with an older woman, Mrs. Erlynne. Her reaction sets off a series of misunderstandings and deceptions that threatens to throw her entire social world into chaos.
While the play is inextricably tied to the mores of its day, Barker believes that its themes will resonate with contemporary audiences. “This story is all about perception, which is why it’s so relevant today,” he says. “We live in an age of celebrity and reality television shows. Everyone is scrutinized publicly. We are all very quick to draw opinions of other people, even if they are inaccurate. And that is precisely what A Good Woman is about.”
“The film is about the dangers of judgment and gossip, and how poisonous it is to all parties involved,” says Helen Hunt, who plays Mrs. Erlynne, a woman whose life is irrevocably changed by her tarnished reputation.
Given the play’s timely themes, Barker wanted to make sure that a film version of this “famously English play,” which takes place in twenty-four hours in an 1890 London drawing room, would be more than just a historical artifact aimed at anglophiles. “I didn’t want to make an English drawing room comedy like something you would see on the BBC,” says Barker.
Hoping to update the play as much as possible, Barker and producers Alan Greenspan, Jonathan English, Steven Siebert and Howard Himelstein reset the story in 1930 and moved the action to Italy’s Amalfi coast, where the social aristocracy is enjoying the summer season. Some of the play’s key characters, such as Mr. and Mrs. Windermere and Mrs. Erlynne, were re-imagined as Americans.
Says Barker, “The foreign locale opened up the action, and allowed us to pursue a more international cast without jeopardizing any of the play’s logic. It also made the story ten times more cinematic.”
In his adaptation, writer/producer Howard Himelstein focused primarily on making Wilde’s satirical characters more human and sympathetic. “Historically, Wilde’s characters can be seen as a shallow lot. Their brilliant words are their armor,” he says. “The challenge was to imbue these characters with the emotional depth that Wilde doesn’t afford them in his plays.”
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A Good Woman (2006)
Directed by: Mike Barker
Starring: Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Milena Vukotic, Diana Hardcastle, Giorgia Massetti, Shara Orano, Valentina D’Uva, Antonio Barbaro
Screenplay by: Howard Himelstein
Production Design by: Ben Scott
Cinematography by: Ben Seresin
Film Editing by: Neil Farrell
Costume Design by: John Bloomfield
Set Decoration by: Marina Pinzuti Ansolini, Barbara Cicero
Art Direction by: Pier Luigi Basile
Music by: Richard G. Mitchell
MPAA Rating: PG for thematic material, sensuality and language.
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: February 3, 2006
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