The story is simple: boy meets girl. It's commendably light, however, and the plot is seemingly fortuitous (not to say unpredictable). Well, it is an idyll. Director Maurice Tourneur displays a film vocabulary to rival D.W. Griffith, at least at this point--before "The Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance". Medium shots, with occasional close-ups, dominate rather than long shots. He uses intertitles sparingly and adopts iris shots from Billy Bitzer. The dolly shot across a dinner table is great.
Actually, Tourneur was a superior storyteller compared to Griffith in respect to a simple story; this film isn't drenched in melodrama and Victorian sentiments. Additionally, I like how it begins on a stage and ends there. The age of feature-length pictures were born via photographed plays by Italian studios and Pathé film d'art, but, soon, the cinematic films by Tourneur, Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille and others, in addition to The Great War, prevailed over the movement to reduce cinema to a travesty of theatre. Yet, "The Wishing Ring" has its problems, as would other early films; for example, there is still the missing wall during indoor shooting and some obvious staging of actors for the camera's view.