A Good Woman

(Herald rating * * *)

A Good Woman is director Mike Barker's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1892 play Lady Windermere's Fan.

Wilde has provided an impressive collection of work for film-makers to tap into, but unlike other recent screen versions of his plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest, Barker alters the time and place of Wilde's original work, transporting it to the picture-perfect postcard backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, Italy in the 1930s.

Those who love all things Italian will be able to sit back and enjoy the quaint seaside town, the exquisite costumes and grand villas, and happily ignore the majority of the cast's performances as they struggle their way through Wilde's witty and often brilliant dialogue.

Barker has opted to present A Good Woman as more drama than comedy, and in return has let a fair portion of Wilde's delightful observations go to waste. Wilde's astute and amusing comments on human behaviour and snobbish social conventions are best delivered in a farcical tone, but in A Good Woman their delivery seems too sincere and serious, and they become easy to miss.

As is often the case with Wilde's writing, A Good Woman centres on two couples, a multitude of misunderstandings, and exaggerated (I hope) additional characters.

Barker should be sighing with relief that he cast the delightful Tom Wilkinson, who steals the show as twice-married Tubby who falls for Mrs Erlynne (Hunt) while holidaying on the Italian Riviera.

Embracing his flaws and ignoring his peers' advice, he pursues the infamous divorcee who appears to be having an affair with young American Robert Windermere (Umbers), recently married to Meg (Johansson). And on it goes - a lot of wealthy people with little to do in Europe but twist themselves into knots.

Hunt seems an odd choice as the seductress Mrs Erlynne. Initially Barker does very little to help Hunt look flattering under harsh lighting, but this treatment increases our curiosity about her misfit character, and Hunt manages to hold our attention surprisingly well.

Johansson stops herself from nibbling on her lower lip for the first time in many a release, and although she has the naivety of the newly married Meg Windermere, she comes across as rather bland, as does her husband, and her admirer Lord Darlington (Campbell Moore).

A Good Woman is a solid film and a pleasant watch, but Wilde fans may find it all a bit flat.

CAST: Tom Wilkinson, Scarlett Johansson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Mark Umbers, Helen Hunt
DIRECTOR: Mike Barker
RUNNING TIME: 93 mins
RATING: PG (adult themes)
SCREENING: Rialto, Bridgeway, Village Queen St, Berkeley cinemas