"A Good Woman"

I typically do not like movies that are derived from stage plays. They come across as artificial, too talky, and too stagy. However, in perusing my favorite film list, I see there are some notable exceptions to this general rule. These exceptions include "Casablanca", "Inherit the Wind", "Judgment at Nuremberg", and "Fiddler on the Roof".

Halfway through "A Good Woman", I was ready to abort the viewing and send it back. But I persevered due to a desire to learn more about the genre of Oscar Wilde plays. There were a number of famous lines I had heard in the past, such as, in talking about opera, "Words that are too foolish to be spoken are sung", and "Men and women can never be friends".

Basically that is the only redeeming feature of this film, which I cannot recomend. It is based on Wilde's play, "Lady Windemere's Fan", and contains many memorable lines in which the characters are talking aobut relationships between the sexes. Coincidentally, I was reminded that I have a book of famous Wilde lines when my sister returned it after having borrowed it to read on the plane during a recent trip to Kansas. A better way to experience these lines is to read this book, rather than sit through a movie with unbelievable characters sitting around and gossiping, which is mostly what this movie consists of.