Movie Review

The Women (PG-13)

Pete Hammond

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Hollywood.com Says
The Women is a smash hit, nothing more but nothing less than just hilarious, flat-out fun that manages to top Sex and the City in every way imaginable.

Story
This smart remake/update of a 70 year-old play and movie may not win any Oscars, but it turns out to be as gorgeously entertaining as its title indicates. Based on the play and 1939 movie of the same name that skewered upper society women of the era, writer/director Diane English has kept the bones intact but updated it all to include women of various places in life. Women who are still trying to find love and happiness, and above all else, female friendship. In their world, life seems to revolve around Tanya (Debi Mazar), the gossipy manicurist at the Saks Fifth Avenue Beauty Salon who spills the beans to magazine editor Sylvie (Annette Bening) that her best friend Mary’s (Meg Ryan) Wall Street tycoon husband has been catting around with voluptuous perfume “spritzer girl” Crystal Allen (Eva Mendes). Deciding in tandem with Mary’s other pals--the housewife Edie (Debra Messing) and writer Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith)--to tell Mary, Sylvie sparks an incident that sets off fireworks in all their lives, with betrayals, career crises, pregnancy, retreats, revenge and forgiveness all figuring into the male-less proceedings.

Acting
The Women’s entire ensemble cast is pure pleasure, and it’s exclusively made up of some of the best comedic actresses around. Even all the extras are women, but then that’s sort of the joke of the whole premise. Estrogen flows freely in this group, led by Meg Ryan, as the victimized wife and mother whose husband plays around on her and whose own father fires her from her job. Talk about a tough week! With money lines like her declaration of sexual prowess, “I can suck the nails out of a board,” Ryan has some of her best moments in recent years, playing nicely off co-star Bening. As Mary’s best friend, she’s the workaholic but aging editor of a women’s magazine that’s on the edge of change she can’t seem to keep up with. Bening beautifully reflects the quandary of a career woman who has to watch her back at every moment. Messing and Pinkett Smith round out the fearsome foursome and each gets some choice comic material to play, particularly Messing’s histrionics as the pregnant Edie. Suffice to say the inevitable but riotously funny delivery scene is well worth waiting for. Mendes plays the vamp bit for all it’s worth, stunning in all her cunning. Mazar, though, is a bit too laid back as the manicurist with all the secrets. Cloris Leachman delivers some prize one-liners as Mary’s loyal housekeeper and Tilly Scott Peterson is very funny as the Uta, the nanny. Carrie Fisher, as a gossip columnist, and Bette Midler, as a tough-talking Hollywood agent, make the most of their brief screen time as well, but it’s English's Murphy Brown star Candice Bergen who steals the show as Mary’s wise but plastic surgery-addicted mother. A post face-lift scene with Bergen counseling Ryan is priceless stuff.

Direction
Writer/director Diane English says she spent 14 frustrating years trying to bring this sassy update of Claire Booth Luce’s creation to the screen. Timing is everything and now with female bonding films all the rage, The Women, circa 2008, could be just the ticket. Certainly it’s strength is the comic savvy of English, who spent several seasons on Murphy Brown honing her skills. It pays off here with a talented cast delivering her snappy lines with expert comic timing. Sure, even updated as it is, The Women still has the creakiness of a vehicle that peaked in 1939, but for whatever reason the old-fashioned craftsmanship still works even in an era where women have gone on to achievements not dreamed about when Luce wrote the play. As a director, English is all about protecting her script, and it’s the tight pacing of one amusing sequence after another that makes this little trifle sail by right down to the final sight gag. See it.

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