****SPOILERS*****At one point the wife very emphatically states that she wants a baby. The couple must have been married for quite a while at that point and that he had been unable to impregnate her. I think that the husband agreeing to let his backward brother to have sex with the wife was perhaps a desperate hope of giving her a baby. But the brother is a premature ejaculator. Disappointment is written in the expression on the wife's face as she urges "Wait! Wait!" Maybe with the near rape by the barman, she saw a vital man who could possibly provide her with a baby. Women who want babies have been known to do some pretty crazy things. There are many psychological disparities about the movie, but if you consider the urge to reproduce as the primary motivation of the wife, it may answer a lot of questions. Very good performances by all. I love being dropped into a time and place totally unlike anything I've ever known and being asked to believe it. All the costuming, environment, and supporting cast helped me to do just that.
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RDenial14 December 2003Rachel Ward gives an incredible performance in this movie of a woman so obsessed with a man, that she slowly loses all dignity and her standing in the community. This is a powerful movie but could have been much better if the scene where she sleeps with her husbands brother in the beginning was left out. I really think the movie could be improved if that scene, which has nothing to do with the events that follow, could be edited out. That scene makes Ward's character seem to be a sleaze and only hurts the main story. If you can fast forward through that, you will see a well respected woman who loses everything in pursuit of a real jerk. Oh, how truthful this film is.
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telcam18 October 2006In this immoral little farce the women feel free to indulge in their fantasies. When Marge is propositioned by her brother-in-law she says talk to Sonny about it. Then when Sonny tells Sugar that it's alright as long as it's okay with Marge, she feels like it doesn't matter and goes ahead. When the stranger comes to town she is smitten with him like half of the other town's women. Seems like their men don't have what it takes to satisfy them. Marge has a free-wheeling mother who does whatever she pleases, and she doesn't want her to be a servant to anyone. Her mother is rather surprised by her amorous pursuit of the new stud in town. This is quite a situation given that it's in 1939, but this is Australia, known for the unexpected. When Marge is pining away for this stranger Sonny get defensive, and feels betrayed. But they are true soul mates and neither them have scruples. At the end Sonny has sent Sugar packing, and brought his Marge back home.
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"The Good Wife" is a film that seems to have a lot of quiet seductive power.... the story itself, which I found only minimally absorbing, is also somewhat lame and perhaps a bit goofy (Marge, a married woman, played by Rachel Ward, feels bored and unfulfilled in her rural Australian setting and first sleeps with her husband's younger brother, then begins to lust after a local barman played by Sam Neill...). However, the atmospheric setting, the scenery, the cinematography, the costumes, the characters, the enchanting background music - well, just about ALL elements of the film, are so rich and vibrant that they suck you right in, and more than make up for the rather daft story line.
Hence, "The Good Wife" is that sort of movie where you end up caring about the fates of the various players. You actually care about the denouement of the movie, because as the story unfolds, you really do start to care about the players as human beings, and you can't help but become interested in their individual destinies.
The creators of the film did an excellent job of recreating the look and feel of the time period of the story, which is set in 1939 Australia. I especially like the attention given to minute details that help to establish time and place and also give the movie a rich and full-bodied flavor. The eye-candy cinematography is just spectacular. This is easily one of the most "beautiful" movies I've ever seen. I'm glad I taped this movie off of a cable showing on TV. I will definitely be watching this one again!! -
billy32809 July 2006What a heart-rendering plot! Throughout the movie, I kept wondering if there was the faintest chance that any close-knit community under the stars harbored secrets similar to the plot...
Both brothers scruples, Marge's sexual appetite and the manner in which the town takes everything in step...
It is sickeningly-refreshing to see this small town's women enjoy their sexuality as much as they do...
To think all it takes is one male catalyst (Sam Neill's character, Neville) to turn women loose! Every guy's fantasy role...
How am I to imagine the emotional toll this movie shoot took both on Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown (married to each other)?...
Wow! -
(1986) The Good Wife DRAMA
Originally called "The Umbrella Woman" in Australia, a movie that plays like one of the worst soap operas ever made, starring Rachael Ward as Marge Hills the wife of real life husband of Bryan Brown, playing as her faithful husband Sonny Hill, the time is sometime during "The Great Depression" and chops trees down as a way of getting by, along with his younger brother Sugar Hills (Steven Vidler) who eventually gains consent in hitting puberty with Sonny's wife. Eventually, she becomes selfish and gets tired living the life she's always accustomed in doing, which is the cleaning and the cooking, that she's willing to get herself humiliated by some of the townspeople just so she can be with a much wealthier sleazeball who takes pride in sleeping around with other peoples wives and his name is Neville played by Sam Neil. The movie is so bad one can know whatever happens if s/he were to use the fast forward button while playing since the dialogue is so uninspiring and emotionally draining. Oh yeah, although the movie is given the "R" rating on my commercial copy, it's only given that rating because of it's subject matter since their is no nudity nor any offensive language, at least as far as I know anyway. -
Hermit C-216 September 1999'The Good Wife' is for those who like films that focus on an obscure little corner of the world and look at the feelings and foibles of the people therein. This time the camera is aimed at a small Australian town in 1939, where Marge Hills (Rachel Ward) feels that life is passing her by despite her work as a midwife and marriage to a loving husband. Nothing exciting ever happens to her, she thinks, and her attempts to make something happen get her into all sorts of small-town trouble.
Rachel Ward is such a beauty and has such a presence that I probably would have been content to watch her putter around the kitchen for ninety minutes at this stage of her career. Anyone familiar with Bryan Brown's work will not be surprised to hear that he is excellent in the role of Sonny, the husband. Steven Vider is also very good as Sugar, Sonny's younger brother, a youth so callow that he asks his brother if it's OK to sleep with his wife. Sam Neill is the newcomer to town whose attention Marge tries so desperately to get. A lot of people would describe this as a "little" film but I got more enjoyment out of it than many of its bigger brethren. -
At first this movie made no sense to me: why did the husband allow the wife to sleep with his brother, why did the wife do it, why did the husband put up with his obnoxious brother anyhow, why was the barman so curt with his first (and only) come-on to the wife that he seemed more like a rapist than a rogue, why did the rapist/rogue lose interest so quickly (as the wife is very beautiful), and why in the heck did the wife ever want the barman at all? None of these things made any sense to me (not to mention that to me the barman was not anything as dashing as his part gave him credit for being).
Then when I watched it again -- mostly because my screen had been messed up (with way too little lighting the first time) -- I started noticing other things I too often take for granted perhaps: how loving and loyal the husband was to his brother, how loving the wife and husband were to one another, how mechanical (read very boring) the sex was between the husband and wife, how premature the ejaculation between the wife and husband's brother (the first and only time they had sex with one another, with the husband's full consent), how disloyal and disrespectful the husband's brother was to anyone and everyone, what a total jerk the barman was from front to finish. Asking myself again what was the significance that the wife's mother was a total floozy. The wife and her mother chose different paths in life, but maybe for this one episode the daughter was reflecting the mother's ways more...
Then things started to occur to me: that perhaps part of the reason the wife felt like her life seemed so devoid of meaning was not only that she had no children but also that sex had already become so "ho-hum" between her and her husband. Perhaps she would never have considered a liaison with any other man the rest of her life had it not been for her husband allowing, and thus encouraging, that she basically whore for his brother that one time. Perhaps his premature ejaculation brought her to a higher degree of frustration. While on the one hand she was loyal and having mechanical sex with her husband, she loved him and he her and it was okay; but now that she had a chance to hope for something to feel a bit special in that regard, with the brother, it was a total wash. Now her husband and unleashed something, by allowing that tryst with he brother. Now her anime within sought fulfillment, and supposed it could get a passionate response from the rogue/rapist. Really she went a bit crazy, and surely the sex drive can make most men and women act crazed and foolish, especially when no holds are barred.
There was a very touching scene where the wife says the barman "must love her" because otherwise how could she possibly feel the way she did? What she felt was so exciting and felt so good and any woman that beautiful knows she is beautiful. There was simply no reason for the barman not to want her; so she thought and felt. He was really such a jerk, and actually the only person in the film I feel was a bit mis-cast. For this role I would have liked to have seen a man with much more magnetism, charisma.
Anyhow, as the movie goes on we find the husband reacting with trying to get her back and being incredibly loving toward her -- not at all the kind of husband we are used to seeing in so many movies and in so many scenes in real life that becomes angry and violent.
Really this woman could have lost her husband so easily by her actions, and for quite a while was totally okay with losing him. That he took her back and loved her as he did was so beautiful to me. The movie ended as if we were at the end of the film in "The Wizard of Oz." She had wanted something interesting to happen, it had happened, the "bad guys" were gone now -- (both the upstart brother and the jerk barman) -- and this was her home where she was cherished.
Beautiful. -
oftenwrong11 April 2002I saw this movie for the second time again after having seen it when it first came out in 1987. I enjoyed it just as much now as I did then. The characters are interesting and thought-provoking especially the main character, Marge Hills played by Rachel Ward. It's about a woman who lives in a small town in Australia ca.1939. She has a loving husband but feels that life is passing her by and that exciting things only happen to other people. Enter Sam Neill. He comes to town and things change drastically for her. I felt sorry for her character which rapidly becomes pathetic. This is a movie for people who don't need a whole lot of action and special effects. I also liked seeing Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward teamed up again. The first time was in The Thorn Birds where I believe they actually met and, sometime afterward, eventually got married.
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Zilius15 April 2002I saw the second half of this movie on cable starting from the point where Sam Neil came into town. Then the next day i caught the second half again. The story and the truth it brought to me was captivating. It brought many things to my mind. besides that it reminded me of many things it was all very atractivly shot with beutifull powerfull actors/actresses.
i noticed there is only one comment in 3 years about this film and feeling so strongly about it i worte this. I have noticed many have though nothing of this film. though it fake or a physcolical atempt at "showing us something" "being something" but i belive these peoples life expereance has not agreed with the content and for that reason they do not like it. It has seemed very real to me. Although the style of acting in many ways is more like stage acting and carried more by the writers ideas then by the "relisim" of the actors themselvs. But what true ideas the writer has shown us! -
Mumsy26 July 2002Although it has been quite some time since I have seen this film, I recall it being very intense, realistic, and well-acted. Rachel Ward in one of her best roles. Provocative subject matter, great setting/backdrop. Just a really good picture, NOT to be confused with a chick-flick. Even the husband truly enjoyed it.
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paidinfull1316 December 2018This movie has a lot of lessons in it. Its the type of film that you watch and get inspired by over and over. Simple yet majestic. Chilling. Filled with events that wont let you indifferent. If anyone knows a similar one, let me know
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tomsview7 August 2021This unusual film is quite haunting in its own way. I put that down to the cast, the setting and that score by Cameron Allan, sort of like tubular bells, but with a gentle, lilting quality.
We are back in 1939. Marge Hills (Rachel Ward) is married to Sonny Hills (Bryan Brown) and they live on a property in rural Australia. Marge seems fulfilled at first, but things change when Sonny's younger brother comes to stay. Then we see that Marge, like Flaubert's Madam Bovary, has romantic yearnings, which her loving, but wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am husband can't fulfil. When Marge encounters the town's new barman, Neville Gifford (Sam Neill), it triggers an obsession that changes all their lives.
Rachel Ward gives a pretty amazing performance although I think her transition from the kind, soft-spoken woman to the loud, drunken stalker and finally the tragic, broken delusionist would stretch any actor.
She was so believable as the in-control femme fatale of "After Dark, My Sweet", but here she is far more vulnerable. Of course she looks fabulous; even those straight up and down 1930s fashions hang well on her. Bryan Brown is believable as the strong man of the land while Sam Neill catches the right note as the cynical womaniser, but he also has a story.
Director Ken Cameron felt that the problem with the film was that audiences didn't buy the fact that Marge would go after Nev when she had the virile Sonny right there in bed. But I don't think so. It was cast right.
Maybe a little more should have been made of the impact of Neville's rejection of Marge. She was the head-turningly, most beautiful woman in town and although no show-off, she would have known it; that would have been part of the shock to her psyche.
If anything jarred it was probably Sonny letting his obnoxious little bro climb into the marital bed with Marge; it doesn't ring true.
The recreation of the period is perfect. Little touches resonate. Even the fact that Marge uses an umbrella to protect herself from the sun wasn't unusual back then.
Why did it bomb? It's depressing, and it looked like it was going to be depressing. There is little humour. But maybe the most tragic thing about its obscurity is that within it are possibly Rachel Ward's and Bryan Brown's most complex and heartfelt performances. -
After seeing this movie, I was prompted to write and comment, once again, about the roles that husbands are afforded in almost every movie w/ a love triangle. This film offers a stark illustration of this fact. For the sake of the story, we are asked to suspend disbelief and watch as every husband portrayed in the film, is cuckolded- & offers no instance of protest, or resistance. So let me get this straight- the " GOOD WIFE" in the film, is a lustful, amoral character- who presumably destroys her marriage to pursue a worthless cad. By itself, this isn't an unbelievable tale. My pet peeve however, is how the women's spouses are portrayed, in movies of this sort. The B. Brown character not only doesn't get angry, he offers his wife to his brother, excuses her behavior w/ the barman, and willingly, immediately, and w/out reservation, offers "instant forgiveness" to his cheating wife- another predictable staple for this character. The other husband in the movie who catches his wife w/ another man, reacts the same way. In other words, every husband is weak, ineffectual & too inadequate, to show anger, towards their straying wives! No, the women are all capable of destructive actions, but the husbands?- their reaction to these actions, is reserved, measured, & minimal at best. This character is essential to filmmakers, but is so prevalent, that it's becoming a cliché' within itself! The first film that actually offers a sympathetic, strong portrayal of a betrayed man, which by the way is the usual portrayal given to betrayed wives, will be a revelation. An actual male character who doesn't whine & weakly accepts his wife's cheating. One who decides that SHE is not worthy of him- would be a first! Instead we are faced w/ the same character- gutless, weak, no balls, and willing to accept any & all humiliations, for the sake of fantasy. By no means am I one of these right-wing, "defenders of families" freaks- but it's not hard to see that the portrayal of husbands in these movies, would give one pause. What reality are these filmmakers living in- & maybe, just once, they'll join ours!