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'A Good Woman' is a little uptight

From its opening credits — white type on a black screen, accompanied by a scratchy old record — to its female leads and focus on the kind of people who can afford to rent villas for the summer, "A Good Woman" looks a lot like what Woody Allen would do if given a Merchant-Ivory film to direct.

Lions Gate Films 'A Good Woman' 2 out of 5 stars Director: Mike Barker Starring: Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Mark Umbers Run time: 93 minutes Release date: Feb. 3, 2006 Rating: PG-13 for thematic material, sensuality and language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site [an error occurred while processing this directive]

The similarity is skin-deep, which is a shame. This adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play is a comedy that thinks it's a melodrama, a polished little art-house product that should have taken a cue from some of its characters and loosened up.

Set against the beautiful Amalfi coast in Italy, the story tosses a couple of true-blue newlyweds (Scarlett Johansson and Mark Umbers) into the shark tank of blueblood society. Can their happiness be as solid as they think? How many days will it take dowager gossips and slick seducers to fracture this idyll?

The story's title refers with irony to Helen Hunt's character, a notorious golddigger who has fled debts in America to find a new sugar daddy or three. It doesn't take her long, though Hunt can't quite sell herself as a femme fatale. The usual social uproar ensues, decorated here with so many of Wilde's immortal epigrams, amazingly witty nuggets of social insight, that viewers might feel they're reading Cliff's Notes.

The film's brightest spot (one-liners aside) is Tom Wilkinson's Tuppy, one of Hunt's wealthier suitors. Wilkinson's been-around-the-block openness is completely winning, a bit of warmth in a very cynical world.