| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 09/16/2008 : 23:58:59
The Women
Great social comedy has been around for thousands of years, and like Aristophanes' Lysistrata, it depends on satirizing the vagaries of domestic life as an appealing way to better understand it and ourselves.
There are some true modern female inheritors of the heavenly wit of Dorothy Parker and Anita Loos, those women who could and did match IAL Diamond for a snappy wisecrack even as they analyzed how society works.
Gail Parent, Nora Ephron, Elaine May are three such women. But talented as she is, Diane English is not.
It's only if you've had the pleasure of seeing George Cukor's 1939 version of Clare Boothe Luce's witty stageplay that you realize how much superior it is to this Diane English version.
Now, English carved out a tv niche with her original shows like Murphy Brown, starring Candice Bergen, who incidentally has developed into one of the finer comic actresses of our time. It's almost axiomatic her dialogue is the best, funniest and most convincingly delivered in The Women.
Without that golden level of wit and pace, the film still entertains, and at a few rare moments even transcends entertainment but it operates more on the level of soap opera than social comedy. It's on the few occasions that one of the women delivers a pithy and scathing or incisive comic observation that you see what the rest of the script is missing.
The acting is terrific. These are probably the best performances by Meg Ryan and Annette Bening, both of whom have provided a career of really good performances. The 2nd string team: the above-mentioned Bergen, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, Debi Masur, and Eva Mendes all do what's required, with less well-drawn characters. And the cameos by Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, and Carrie Fisher are inspired.
But the premise - so acceptable back in the 1930s - of the kind of domestic treacheries that were the stuff of Restoration farces - cheating husbands, wifely baby machines, the difficulty for women to put career first - all catalysts that deal with how to be a woman in a man's world - well, the film adds precious little to whatever debate is left. The only way to make this stuff work, to drag it out of the smell of daytime tv, is to dress it - not in the designer world that English has - but in a land of non-stop zingy one-liners, of truly sassy dames to offset the girls-next-door and their obscene bank accounts.
In the end, it's just to damned reverential just when it needs to be offensive.
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| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 10/16/2008 : 15:53:15
Thanks for the street scene info, which I didn't notice. You're right about the stock female situations, although the lesbian character is a little atypical. Anyway, I feel pleased that I didn't notice the gimmick till near the end. |
| turrell |
Posted - 10/16/2008 : 15:15:06
What a colossal waste of time this movie was. Filled with tired stereotypes about men. The gimmick of no men in the movie felt really forced - shots of downtown Manhattan mid-day with only women on the streets. Not even a gay shopper at Sax?
I get that they were trying to make a point - but if you want to promote films with strong women in them - just write better films with women characters in them. Every standard woman's issue is covered here - the cheating husband, the face lift/older women have it hard, the mother daughter struggles, the stupid women's retreat, the hackneyed baby birth (while yelling at the bastard that got her this way even though she has 4 other kids).
I realize I am not the target market for this movie - my wife was having a rough day and this is what she picked (I was the only guy in the movie theater), but it was really like so many complaints about the struggles women go through - not offering any alternatives or really any really likable characters - they had annoying qualities.
I'll chalk this up to a waste of 2 hours and $20, but I hope that the next time they use such a talented cast they get better things to say. |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 09/22/2008 : 04:11:11
I didn't realise it was based on anything, so thought it was good. Beforehand, I thought it an odd title, and only towards the end noticed that I hadn't really seen any men. Then afterwards, I could not think of any men at all. There are New York street shots, so they must appear in them, surely? But in terms of people paid to be there (customers in shops, people at fashion shows) I think they may have literally all been women. The men in the characters' lives are certainly entirely unseen. Oh, with one small exception at the end. So until now I gave the film the credit for this reasonably interesting concept. Ah well.
They should've mocked up a much better magazine cover at the end. It is just dreadful. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 09/17/2008 : 06:13:24
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
The acting is terrific. These are probably the best performances by Meg Ryan and Annette Bening, both of whom have provided a career of really good performances. The 2nd string team: the above-mentioned Bergen, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, Debi Masur, and Eva Mendes all do what's required, with less well-drawn characters. And the cameos by Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, and Carrie Fisher are inspired.
Oh... my... GOD! What a cast!
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
But the premise - so acceptable back in the 1930s - of the kind of domestic treacheries that were the stuff of Restoration farces - cheating husbands, wifely baby machines, the difficulty for women to put career first - all catalysts that deal with how to be a woman in a man's world - well, the film adds precious little to whatever debate is left. The only way to make this stuff work, to drag it out of the smell of daytime tv, is to dress it - not in the designer world that English has - but in a land of non-stop zingy one-liners, of truly sassy dames to offset the girls-next-door and their obscene bank accounts.
In the end, it's just too damned reverential just when it needs to be offensive.
Ah... too bad, that. But I still hope it comes to Israel so I can see it. That cast! Wow!
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