Guildford, UK – If you’re expecting a review going on and on about how “good women” should behave and about “the golden days” where women had no say nor opinion, then you’re reading the wrong review (and potentially watching the wrong film).
A Good Woman, released in 2004, is anything but.
Listen to the author read this review:
Instead, director Mike Barker chose to make a beautifully vivid romantic comedy about how people ought to behave, and it is memorizing.
Set in 1930’s Italy – and based on Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play “Lady Windermere’s Fan” – Barker sets his ideal society among the western world’s elites and their dazzling summer villas on the Amalfi coast.
The plot follows Lady Meg Windermere, who is superbly played by Scarlett Johansson, as she navigates high society for the first time as the young, beautiful and new bride of Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers).
The plot doesn’t dwell much on how Lady Windermere is adjusting to high society life, because thanks to her kind persona and her husband’s welcoming friends, she fits right in.
But before Barker introduces the Windermeres, he shows us a rather scandalous prologue where a very bad woman goes to the Amalfi coast and is assumed to be having an affair with Robert Windermere.
It is through this suspected affair that “A Good Woman” really makes its mark.
Barker shows us through his characters, especially Lady Windermere, how people should react to rumors.
He portrays his characters as having genuinely believable human reactions which captivate the audience. Gossip, anger and feelings of betrayal make up the tension in the film, but the characters keep going.
There is hardly ever an outburst and everybody shows patience and understanding. The characters forgive each other’s mistakes and rarely jump to conclusions.
As a result, Barker successfully teaches the audience how to be good people without us feeling patronized. By the end of the film, we get the feeling that we know what to do – and what not to do – to avoid getting ourselves into similar situations.
A Good Woman is the perfect film for any social event. It takes the moral concept of a fairytale and applies it, to a more realistic example than slaying dragons and rescuing princesses in a refreshingly clean and concise way.
Manuel Bernardo Tavares Moreira Belo Carmona is a Junior Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
