Review: The Women (2008)

[Steve Rhodes]

THE WOMEN
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2008 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****):  * 1/2

Just shoot me.  THE WOMEN, a remake of a 1939 film, is set in a completely 
man-free Manhattan.  Filled with the shallowest women you're likely to meet, 
the movie is a chick flick in the worst sense of that phrase.  Sure, it's 
got a great cast, but this guy spent most of the movie eagerly waiting for 
the closing credits to start rolling so that he could beat a hasty exit.

In a story in which men are heard of but quite literally never seen, the 
movie starts with Sylvia Fowler (Annette Bening) prowling the aisles of her 
favorite luxury retailer, Saks.  As she cuddles her little dog close to her 
bosom, she talks to one of her girlfriends on her cell phone.  The topic of 
conversation concerns catty remarks that Sylvia is making about other 
women's wardrobes.

But the fireworks really start when Sylvia gets her nails done.  Tanya (Debi 
Mazar), Sylvia's new manicurist, is a chatterbox and a non-stop gossip 
machine.  Tanya tells Sylvia that a sales clerk friend of hers, Crystal 
Allen (Eva Mendes), is having a big affair with a rich and married hedge 
fund manager.

Of course, the cheating guy is married to one of Sylvia's best friends, Mary 
Haines (Meg Ryan).  This means that Sylvia will have to tell all of Mary's 
friends about the affair so that Sylvia can get their advice on whether she 
should inform Mary or not.

About the only thing that all of Sylvia's friends agree on is that the 
"spritzer girl" who is seeing Mary's husband is absolutely despicable.  But 
Mary confesses that she has cheated too. Once, when she was kid, she scooted 
her playing piece up a few squares in Monopoly.  Wow.

Jada Pinkett Smith plays Alex Fisher, the plot's token lesbian.  Currently 
dating a supermodel, Alex lives a life in the fast lane of sleek sports cars 
and swank nightclubs.  Other actresses play other female stereotypes.

Although the script takes great pains to suggest that most of the women in 
the film have important careers, their actions suggest that most of them are 
really card-carrying members of the idle rich.  The scene with Sylvia 
getting her nails on one hand done while texting to her friends with the 
other perfectly epitomizes the women's vapid lives.  Although there are 
women everywhere in the story, there doesn't seem to be a brain among them.

A clue to the story's unsuccessful approach might be in a snippet of dialog 
between Mary and her mother, Catherine Frazier (Candice Bergen).  When 
Catherine supplies unwanted advice to her daughter, Mary tells her, "What do 
you think this is -- some kind of 1930's movie?"  Intended, one supposes, to 
be a bit of ironic, self-deprecating humor, it comes across instead as an 
accidental apology to the audience for the film's unrealistic and 
unbelievable characters.  I certainly didn't buy or care for any of them.

"Have you looked around lately?" Catherine, while enduring a very painful 
treatment to attempt to restore her youthful looks, asks her daughter. 
"There are no sixty-year-old women.  I'm the only one left."

Gag!

THE WOMEN runs 1:54.  It is rated PG-13 for "sex-related material, language, 
some drug use and brief smoking" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 
and up.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, September 12, 
2008.  In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the 
Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.

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