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A Good Woman

Rating: 2 stars

By CHRIS WANGLER | February 2, 2006

2.0 Stars

The past catches up with an ageing seductress in Mike Barker’s flaccid version of Lady Windermere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners. Newly arrived in Amalfi, Lady Erlynne (Helen Hunt) jumps into an affair with a young businessman who turns out to be married to her long-lost daughter, Meg Windermere (Scarlett Johansson). Keeping her identity under wraps, but finally ready to be “a good woman,” Erlynne almost ruins her own fortunes to prevent Meg from cheating on her husband in retaliation. Although Wilde’s tasty one-liners still crackle (e.g., “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”), you wonder whether this superfluous genre exercise, which includes far too many bored British playboys, wouldn’t have worked better in the stuffy confines of Victorian London, its natural habitat, and with no Americans whatsoever. Please God, let this be the last period piece for ScarJo.

Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Performing Arts, Scarlett Johansson, More

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