Movie Review: The Women

Directed By: Diane English

Starring:
Meg Ryan as Mary Haines
Annette Bening as Sylvie
Debra Messing as Edie

During The Women, I laughed, never cried, and rarely knew when the filmmakers wanted me to do one or the other. The film, a screechy but somehow charming melodrama, features a cast comprised entirely of women, each of them a talented actress audiences have been watching and admiring for years. The lead is none other than Meg Ryan, the retired queen of the romantic comedies, ironically playing a woman experiencing marriage long after the romance and the comedy are over. She is accompanied by Annette Bening, well-accustomed to those skeptical and slighted female roles. Here, she continues the tradition she began in American Beauty and continued with Mrs. Harris, but does so with designer clothing and handbags. Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett Smith round out the gossipy foursome, playing the mother of four rambunctious kids (all girls) and a lesbian respectively. They are all so different; we never know how they all became such good friends.

Diane English, the writer and director who struggled for a reported fourteen years to get this remake made, is never shy about the film’s edge: it is all about women and all for women. Within the first fifteen minutes, the first male character (discussed, but never seen) is already revealed to be an adulterer. He is the husband of Mary Haines (Ryan) and is slinking around with the overtly-sexual perfume girl at Saks Fifth Avenue, Crystal Allen (Eve Mendes). Mendes plays the big-breasted bimbo as a bombshell with very little brains, so dumb she would reveal the affair to store’s chatty nail technician (Debi Mazar). Soon enough, Mary’s best friend Sylvie (Bening) catches wind of the gossip and is obviously perplexed: should she pry into the marriage of her best friend or should she keep it a secret? Too late, Mary finds out before Sylvie can tell her and immediately kicks her philandering husband to the curb, much to the dismay of their young daughter (India Ennenga).

This is when the film begins to buckle under itself. At first a light and breezy comedy about gal pals, it awkwardly attempts to transition into more dramatic territory. Mary’s daughter begins to act out; Mary tries to heal her depression with rehab and then, not surprisingly, a new clothing line; Sylvie and Mary’s friendship is threatened by a serious argument; and Sylvie’s career is pushed to the brink of destruction when her sales drop and she is forced to make some tough decisions. All of this, crammed into just under two hours, is hurled at the audience with vigor and determination, but without the grace or humor that permeated the earlier scenes. It is fortunate then that English regains her composure just in time to provide the film with a fitting conclusion that, thankfully, feels closer in tone to the beginning than the middle.

Over the fourteen years of research and development that was invested in Diane English’s pet project, she should have spent more time smoothing out the muddled mid-section to allow for a more even and engaging transition from beginning to end. The melodramatic and clichéd plot is expected; this is a comedy, after all, and does not necessarily need to provide any thoughtful insight about its characters or their situations. What is left to be said about divorce, adultery, or job woes that hasn’t been said limitless times before in better movies? English never wastes our time with such faux revelations, instead directing her primary focus on entertaining and charming her strictly-female audience. For the most part, she succeeds, thanks mostly to her well-assembled and delightful cast. If nothing else, it reminds me of why I like Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, and all of the others…and why they should have busier acting careers today.