MIKE Barker's social comedy of errors updates Oscar Wilde's classic Lady Windermere's Fan from stuffy Victorian London to the glamorous, sun-kissed Amalfi coast during the 30s.
Having made full use of her various wealthy suitors in New York (and been chased out of town by their vengeful wives), money-grabbing socialite Mrs Erlynne (Helen Hunt) heads for fashionable southern Italy - playground of the rich and aristocratic.
There, she immediately sets her sights on devoted American newly-weds Robert and Meg Windermere (Mark Umbers, Scarlett Johansson).
He is handsome and in charge of the couple's finances, therefore ripe for the picking; she is prim, strait-laced and painfully naive to the ways of the world.
Local gossips are soon in a froth of excitement at the news of Mrs Erlynne's supposed affair with Robert.
Mr Windermere is spotted with Mrs Erlynne in intimate circumstances and secretly writes cheques to finance her extravagant lifestyle.
Dapper and flirtatious Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore), who has held a torch for Meg, exploits the scurrilous situation to pursue the young wife for himself.
She rebuffs his advances, unaware of the storm brewing in her marital teacup but soon becomes suspicious about her husband's behaviour.
Meanwhile, ageing millionaire bachelor Tuppy (Tom Wilkinson) becomes besotted with Mrs Erlynne, to the amusement of the locals.
He doesn't care about the woman's scarlet reputation: he accepts and adores her for what he sees.
Simmering tensions come to a boil at Meg's 21st birthday party where Meg finally accepts Robert's infidelity and succumbs to the predatory Lord Darlington.
However, there is more to Mrs Erlynne than meets the eye.
A Good Woman (the original title of Wilde's play) makes glorious use of its breathtaking European locations, accentuated by the period detail recreated by production designer Ben Scott and costume designer John Bloomfield.
Screenwriter Howard Himelstein remains relatively faithful to the original but opens out the play considerably, giving the piece a more international flavour by making the central characters American.
Wilde's oft-quoted witticisms - "We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars" - sit more comfortably with the British actors, especially Wilkinson who brings a lovely warmth and charm to his hopeless romantic.
Hunt and Johansson are colder and more reserved in comparison but this works to the film's advantage in the closing scenes when dark family secrets are revealed.
See it at: Odeon
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