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A Good Woman
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 A Good Woman Production NotesTagline: 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.
"An elegant and witty romantic comedy based on Oscar Wilde's classic play, "Lady Windermere's Fan."
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...
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.
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.
Mark Umbers as Robert Windermere and Scarlett Johansson as Meg Windermere in A Good Woman.
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.”
When she was first offered the part of Mrs. Erlynne, Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt was unsure if the role was right for her. A “woman of ill repute” who has lost her youth and fallen on hard times, Mrs. Erlynne is a complex heroine, a manipulative woman who is also unerringly honest about herself and others.
“It was Mike himself who convinced me to do the part,” remembers Hunt. “We had lunch one day to discuss the project and his enthusiasm infected me. I left really excited. I have to say, too, that I was really excited about getting to work with Tom Wilkinson.”
“Mrs. Erlynne is a brave role for any actress to play,” admits Barker. “She’s very protected and guarded, and the audience sees the chinks in her armor before she does. Helen brings a real sense of pain to her character, and through her performance we understand Mrs. Erlynne’s regrets and the compromises she has made.”
“Mrs. Erlynne is a bad girl who may not be a bad girl,” says Hunt. “As an actress, I always want to find and understand the secrets of the character I’m playing. In this case, Mrs. Erlynne’s secrets are built into story. I enjoyed playing someone so misunderstood.” Hunt conferred with Barker and Himelstein before production began, helping shape Mrs. Erlynne into a more modern, three-dimensional heroine. Says Hunt, “Mrs. Erlynne starts by running from the truth about her life; but she ends up making a small amount of peace with it.”
“Helen inspires a lot of empathy for the character,” says Himelstein. “She brings a level of complexity to someone who could have been one-note, and makes her easier to follow.”
In the role of Tuppy, the wealthy, ageing aristocrat who falls for Mrs. Erlynne, Tom Wilkinson brings a much-needed dose of honesty and humor to the gossip-prone cast of characters. “Tuppy is a refreshingly candid and amusing character,” says Wilkinson. “He’s like everybody’s uncle. He’s doesn’t take himself or life too seriously, and he’s more clever than he pretends to be. He was a bit of me I rather fancied playing.”
“In the play, Tuppy is almost a buffoon,” says Himelstein. “But Tom turned him into a genuine, honest character with the rare ability to laugh at himself. He brought so many colors to the part. He’s unsurpassed.”
“There’s so much love inside Tom,” adds Barker. “He embodies Tuppy’s pathetic qualities with such ease and honesty. It really feels genuine, and at the same time so strong.”
As in the play, Tuppy is fully aware of Mrs. Erlynne’s unsavory reputation and the fact that she does not love him; yet he offers her his hand in marriage, seeing in Mrs. Erlynne a beautiful, and similarly alienated, companion. One of the pleasures of the film is watching their arrangement develop into one with genuine feeling.
Says Hunt, “Tuppy and Mrs. Erlynne have both been judged and summed up their whole lives. Yet both of them, at the point where they are now, decide to ignore that.”
Barker was especially pleased with the unique chemistry that Hunt and Wilkinson generated on set. “They’re very different actors with different approaches to their work,” admits the director. “Helen is meticulously detailed, and always very prepared, while Tom is much more spontaneous. You never know what he’s going to do. But when the cameras start rolling, their chemistry is explosive.”
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Scarlett Johansson as Meg Windermere in A Good Woman.
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