Blink and you’ll miss this one entirely. It’s an Oscar Wilde comedy of fans, cheques and ruined reputations, and its only moment of nudity lasts about as long as a good epigram takes to land.
What happens in A Good Woman
Mike Barker moves Lady Windermere’s Fan to 1930 and the Amalfi coast. Helen Hunt plays Mrs. Erlynne, a femme fatale who has run out of welcome in New York and appears to set her sights on a newlywed named Robert Windermere. Johansson is his demure wife, Meg, who finds his cheque stubs, assumes the worst and retaliates by wearing a daring gown to her twenty-first birthday party. The twist, which Wilde fans already know, is that Erlynne is her mother.
The moment itself comes at 01:13:20. Mr. Skin calls it “extremely fast”: her breast briefly slips out of her gown as she crawls along the floor. That’s all of it. It’s no love scene, just a costume losing an argument with gravity, but it’s one of only two roles Mr. Skin counts where the nudity is hers.
Filming started in Sorrento in November 2003, when she was 18, with locations in Amalfi, Atrani, Ravello and Rome. Reviews were cool; the Los Angeles Times said it “won’t ruin anyone’s day, but it won’t make anyone’s either.” Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Campbell Moore handled the Wildean aphorisms.
It’s fourth on Scarlett Johansson’s scenes, ranked. The next summer she went to London and got soaked in the Match Point rain scene.
Film: A Good Woman (2004) · TIFF, September 15, 2004; UK, May 13, 2005; U.S. (Lions Gate Films), February 3, 2006 · directed by Mike Barker · Scarlett Johansson as Meg Windermere, Helen Hunt as Mrs. Erlynne
All Scarlett Johansson scenes
1Mirror Scene Under the Skin (2013)- 2Void Walk Under the Skin (2013)
- 3Opening Under the Skin (2013)
- 4Now watchingThe Slip A Good Woman (2004)
- 5Rain Scene (no nudity) Match Point (2005)
- 6Darkroom Kiss (no nudity) Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Back to the hub: Scarlett Johansson nude: every scene, ranked.