Flyerplesys
Perfectly adorable
Micah Lloyd
Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
mrkfolio
This movie is an absolute disgrace and so horribly reductive and misogynistic which makes it so unbelievable that it was directed by a woman and women agreed to act in it. These women couldn't be more 90s Cosmo/sex and the city stereotypes who also look like they're in the 90s, only the movie was made in 2008! If it wasn't for all the plastic surgery faces I would definitely think this was a 90s movie, I mean even the colour grade was 90s! I haven't seen the original but I'm sure even in the late 30s they would have been more progressive than this. The dialogue is painful and clichéd at best and it contains many many cringing moments. Cringing not as funny haha but cringing as in the script is absolutely offensive. Ever heard of the Bechdel test? It asks if a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. (Wikipedia) Well this movie fails the test and it's a movie with an all female cast. This movie has successfully become my worst movie of all time followed by Adam Sandler's Click.
Dan Evans
Much Woody Allen style soul-searching and social satire surrounds this fairly simple story about an upscale she-pack who discover that one of their members has a cheating husband. And, of course, they need to provide her with emotional, if not moral, support.The surreal gimmick in this film is that, with one exception, the entire cast of The Women is female, not just the major players but the extras. All the waiters and diners in a crowded restaurant are women. We are not, however, talking about a female version of The Hunt for Red October because there are men central to the story even if they are talked about like Niles Crane's Maris, never seen or heard. And that's just as well because they are the bastards who cheated. When Mary (Meg Ryan) finally throws out her philandering husband, the confrontation is relayed second-hand to us via the maid. The daughter watches sadly as dad's possessions are tossed out on the lawn.A more accurate title would have been The New York City Women because of the sad plight of that particular demographic who find that men and love are getting to be a scarce commodity. The invisible men in this film are a metaphor for real-life statistics. In NYC men are only 47 percent of the population. In college 40 percent are men. Even fewer of them want to get married. And of the ones who will marry, half will stray. Is it any wonder that women might have the feeling that men are disappearing? Mothers in fly-over land laugh at these big-city broads agonizing over the balance of career and family because even though they may have never been to Saks, at least their daughters aren't smoking cigarettes to keep their weight down, getting tattoos or studying to be hookers. Mary barely gives her daughter the time of day but kids need pretty much full-time adult supervision. With absent fathers and mothers who divide their time between boutiques, career and lunch with friends, the supervision is getting pretty spotty.It isn't really the women who are at fault, it's the men. Back around 1968 women knew what they wanted, they wanted to get married and have children. How tedious and boring. The guys have always known what they want -- boys just want to have fun. They bought the message of their leader, Hugh Hefner, and suckered women with a Three-Card Monte game of "feminism". Women thought they were picking the Queen of Diamonds but got the Joker instead.Some people might think this obsession women have with love, relationships and marriage is somehow trivial but it really is the most important thing in the world. The birth rate in the Western world is declining and has fallen below the replacement rate in several countries. We worry about declining populations of Spotted Owls or White Whales but what about the White Human? The final minute of this film makes it clear, if we don't get this business right, not only will the men disappear but all of us will.
Tahhh
When I saw that a TV station was airing a REMAKE of The Women, last night, I anticipated the worst--after all, the stylish original from the 1930's was such fun, that I couldn't imagine how any modern remake could possibly live up to it. I expected it would be so dreadful and politically correct that I'd turn it off within 20 minutes and go to sleep.Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by a film which was engaging and enjoyable, and which, while BORROWING many of the plot elements from the older film, retold a rather different story, and adhered, almost in a playful manner, to some of the "disciplines" of the original movie, such as never allowing a male to appear on screen.What really saves this movie is the first-rate performance of Annette Bening, who plays a character named Sylvia Fowler, but who otherwise is a completely different woman from the broad clown character Rosalind Russell created in the older film, with an utterly different story. A similarly successful "transplant" is of Mary Haines' mother, here portrayed wonderfully by Candice Bergen--and another is the role of Edie, here played by Debra Messing (who does give us the sort of broad clowning that we had for that role in the old movie).One real DISAPPOINTMENT in these updated roles was Bette Midler, who played the character corresponding to the Countess de Lave, expansively and noisily played by Mary Boland in the old movie. The script didn't go into the fun sub-plot of the Countess's boyfriend and his infidelities, and so this character, and its very fortunate casting, remain very tangential; similarly, Cloris Leachman manages to rescue a microscopic role of one of Mary's household staff--but should have been given much more to play with.Meg Ryan, although turning in a fine performance, is somewhat eclipsed by the talents around her.However, even though it lacks the style and impact of the classic film, I enjoyed this remake quite a bit, and can recommend it. It won't spoil the old film for you--it's too different from it--and yet, will give you several of your favorite moments from the old film refreshed and renewed, as well as a very different approach to others.
mrtraska
Normally, I'm more supportive of women directors, but this really doesn't deserve it. Good actors stuck in a bad script, and it's not even witty. The original was far more clever, if slightly vicious and dated. And what on earth did Meg Ryan do to make herself so unattractive and emotionally unappealing??! (Can you say bad plastic job? Uh-huh. Forget the fat lips, girl.) Moreover, there's not one major character (or characterization) that I find remotely sympathetic or can care about -- I want to slap them all! Don't care for the wimpy, spineless Meg Ryan character or the superficial Annette Bening character. Really don't like the Bette Midler character (or is it what Midler does with it? It's a toss-up). Hate, hate, **HATE** the Debra Messing character!! Eva Mendes? Flat. Boring. Could do entirely without Cloris Leachman: she just irritates lately wherever she is. And Jada Pinkett Smith is practically invisible in this.Skip this. Waste of time. Enough said.
