The Hindu : New Delhi News : A jolly good woman and much more... .

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Sunday, Nov 13, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

A jolly good woman and much more... .

ZIYA US SALAM

A GOOD WOMAN

(At PVR Saket and other Delhi theatres)

Every man is born truthful. Yet every man, as Oscar Wilde told us, dies a liar. On the width of such inscrutable wit director Mike Barker spins together an essay that adds meaning to joy, and life to an evening that would be poorer without it. Based on Wilde's play, "Lady Windermere's Fan", this essay, flowing ever so gently that an expression like breezy would be considered impolite, is a beautiful exercise in understatements.

Such is the subtle joy of this film that if you watch it alone, it makes solitude a worthwhile exercise, and if you do so with a companion, it adds some feelings you never knew existed in your bond.

To begin with, it questions the world's worst kept open secret: life isn't all about good husbands and virtuous wives. Life is actually about those who master themselves. They, as Wilde said, can end sorrow, invent joy. And when the chores of matrimony, simple and natural, drag on unimaginably long, they can stoke up unexpected embers. That is when life embraces joy, buries boredom.

Here we have two couples. There is a young girl married to a man of high station. There is an older woman who knows how to get the most miserly of men to loosen their wallets. Of course, there is a philandering prince who claims to know that Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers), the man rich and wise, is providing a secret allowance for Mrs Erlynne (Helen Hunt) an older woman of ill repute, whilst his wife, Meg Windermere (Scarlett Johansson), courts the attention of the playboy.

All very normal in a story about two couples, one would say. That is until Hunt arrives as Erlynne on the scene. She brings the unexpected. As a woman wedded to the brighter side of life, she stirs curiosity, fuels imagination, challenges loyalty in marriage. The cheeks might be flaccid, throat freckled, the hands wrinkled, but she continues to be a delight and a charmer for all those who have passion between their ears. Her thoughtful ways, her profound eyes, measured words all present limitless possibilities. All that lies between desire and destination is initiative. And that is what Robert shows, with frequently enjoyable results for the cinemagoers. With her wit and wisdom, she stands out in comparison to Scarlett Johansson's Meg, who seems to have left her acting skills behind in a nursery classroom when she sauntered in to this adult show! She costs the movie a point or two but then Hunt garners a few. And gets some likeable company from Tom Wilkison.

Yes, the setting is 1830s. And the locale has been shifted to Amalfi Coast. And the film is untouched by the Great Depression - the characters are all so well off that they talk of afternoon as that in-between time when it is too early for dinner and too late for a walk! But these only add a whiff of wistfulness to a film that is about an era that was beguiling, bewitching. It brings to the fore the melancholy of Wilde's wit. There are more than a few sentences that stay with you long after the credits would have rolled past - "What men call gallantry, God calls adultery"; "A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing".

Watch this one for its words, for its pace, for its leisure. Passivity as an audience was seldom so luxurious, so fulfilling. Watch this one - and do double quick. Remember today's fast-paced life denies us the luxury of regret. This is a movie of considerable delights, endless charms. It has hardly a movement hurried, or a moment easily forgotten. And the title is an understatement in the extreme - it is not a case of a good woman but a great one!

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