It is Oscar Wilde who brings you a dramatic comedy, and will you please take your seat at the table while I narrate this beautiful piece of information which will keep you glued to your seat, for the sheer beauty of the dialogue.
Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About a Good Woman is a 4 Act play from which this movie - A Good Woman(2004) has been adapted. It revolves around a twenty year old Lady Windermere married to a Lord Windermere in a well fashionable town of Amalfi, Italy. There is a woman known as Mrs.Erlynne an archetypal character, who leaves New York to return to a place she left a long long time ago. Only to meet a certain Lord Windermere and supposedly ensnare him and thus equip her poor self to some wealth and live a life which she desperately seeks, a freedom she awaits and a kind of luxury on which she thrives. But what happens when she ends up with more than she bargained for?
The film has a fantastic star cast:
Helen Hunt: Mrs.Erlynne
Tom Wilkinson: Tuppy
Scarlett Johannsson: Lady Windermere
Stephen Campbell Moore: John Darlington
Mark Umbers: Lord Windermere
Let me give you an outline:
Lady Windermere is madly in love with her husband, she's young, she's 20 and most decidedly, she is a Lady and she does exactly what a paradigm of a lady would entail, as a prized possesion she holds a locket which comforts her mother's picture, she faces the society with her charm and innocence, and is a dedicated wife to her husband, but does her husband love her so? The little town of Amalfi is boiling with startling gossip of how Mr.Windermere is found doing rounds of a place where a femme fatale Mrs. Erlynne has newly arrived.
And even though the entire town is aware of that itsy bitsy fact, Mrs.Windermere has no wind about it.Mrs.Stella Erlynne is found to be mingling with the high class society and being amiable when the society wives are gossiping away and worrying about the fact that their beloved Tuppy, a twice divorced man of 40, seems to be enchanted with Stella Erlynne's presence.And oh, how they mock him! But Tuppy is a character, that you'd fall in love with the first repartee uttered by him, or a worldy wise remark that would make you smirk with delight. Somewhere a Lord Darlington is infatuated with Mrs.Windermere. And wants to have her, seems like the playboy won't stop at anything. But a clever tactic by him, makes Mrs.Windermere realise the hidden gossip surrounding Mrs.Erlynne and her husband and then on her 21st birthday a fantastic climax unravels.
Oscar Wilde, is known for his witty aphorisms, and this one is the highlight of them all. The classic tale of Windermere and the unsettling nature of events that unfurl, one by one without a sense of brooding, but one that of seductive joy, getting you enveloped in its mystery and you just realise, that Oscar WIlde actually triumphed in enthralling you with a superb piece of gossip and that he chose his audience to keep the secret for years to come!
The star of this movie I found was Tom Wilkinson, he has earlier starred in Sense and Sensibility as Mr.Dashwood, and now also stars in the highly awaited movie, Micheal Clayton. It is truly the gentle way with which the character Wilkinson portrays makes Tuppy the most loved person in the upper class circuit.For his brazen wit and beautiful and caring nature, which would make the movie'A wonderful hug to the sentiment of Love'. He is my star and well of course it is Oscar Wilde's sense of wit that wields the sceptre.He performs his character to a T. A perfect sense of English breeding. The comforting palm of his tone of voice. An elegant act in all respects, till the last dialogue spoken.
Helen Hunt, who plays Mrs.Stella Erlynne, who comes to Amalfi with a secret, is a mysterious woman, sometimes you feel that for a lady like Mrs.Erlynne, there would be a very obvious Englishness, but as Mrs.Erlynne arrives from the Americas, Helen Hunt fits the bill. But her act is rather more American and somewhere less Victorian. But if you just love Helen Hunt, the Oscar winning actress of As Good As it Gets and the adorable partner in Mad About You, you will humbly accept her presence as Mrs.Erlynne.
Scarlet Johannson slips into the character of the legendary Mrs.Windermere with finnese and grace. An innocent and sweet, but suave girl who proves her ladyship time and again with the confidence of an act that keeps this picture in your grasp. I loved the part where she utters this dialogue when a society lady is hounding her, after she becomes aware of her husband's gossiped promiscuioty.
Contessa Lucchino: You mustn't take it personally. Mrs. Erlynne is one of those women that attract men like a bee to a flame. Eh?
Meg Windermere: A moth.
Contessa Lucchino: Bee to a moth. Mmm.
Reminds you that what you're watching is inherently a comedy. In this wild drama, you find a twisted
humour. And you are surprised. But you're still glued.You don't want to leave the lovely breeze and the warm coffee just yet.
Now as for John Darlington, played by Stephen Campbell Moore is easily forgettable, now if only
Joseph Fiennes would have acted in this role than go Shakespeare crazy and act as Bassanio in
Merchant of Venice, this particlar role would have been unmistakably his crowning glory. And as for
Merchant of Venice. Al Pacino, it is and always will be the King of all Trades.
Now why should you watch it:
Watch it if you want to feel gald to have seen a rare bird, watch it if you want to enjoy the thrill of a boat ride, only you don't paddle! Watch it if you're tired of your neighbour playing Enrique thirty thousand times!
Sincerely, watch it if you really want to feel that warm smile flicker on your face, and see your grumpy old day at work melt into darkness. And feel that Carpe Diem moment yet again!
Now I leave you with some memorable quotes:
Tuppy: Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.
Lord Darlington:I like America. Name me another society that's gone from barbarism to decadence without bothering to create a civilization in between.
Meg Windermere: How could he?
Contessa Lucchino: Every man is born truthful and every man dies a liar. Now whatever you do you mustn't make a scene. It's too unpleasant and you waste energy.
Meg Windermere:No, of course not. I wouldn't.
Contessa Lucchino:Crying is the refuge of plain women.
[smiling brightly]
Contessa Lucchino: Pretty women go shopping.
Dumby: Do you think she'd look at you if you were poor?
Tuppy: Do you think I'd look at her if she were ugly? Fair's fair, exchange rates and so forth. Well I know she's had her this and her that. but if a man can tolerate his own past. why not a past in his wife?
Tuppy: You're so fond of gossip you don't give the truth a chance to put its pants on.
Contessa Lucchino:It's not the truth that's going around without pants, caro Tuppy.
