The Women 2008

     This film was inspired by a play by Clare Boothe Luce.  The setting of the play was in the 1930’s and there are no men in the cast but most of the dialog is about men.  Four close friends, one married with four children, one married with one child but being cheated on, one high-profile professional woman and one lesbian are the subjects.  There are two husbands and a boss but they are only heard on phone conversations.  Mary is the wife of a Wall Street millionaire.  There are complications between Mary and her husband because he is cheating.  Sylvie is the editor of a fashion magazine.  Sylvie has never been a mother but she finds herself acting as a mother for Mary’s precocious daughter Molly.  Edie is the mother of four children and Alex is a lesbian.  The other women are Mary’s housekeeper, a bombshell spritzer girl at the Saks perfume counter, a Hollywood agent and a talkative manicurist from Long Island.   

    The 1939 film starring Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford was a hit and a classic.  It plays like a convention of Hollywood’s top female stars.  This version brings together stars but shows a shift in Hollywood attitudes.  These stars don’t seem to have the stature of the actresses from 1939?  This film deals with mature themes including infidelity and betrayal.  One casualty of marital discord is the damage to children.  There are lots of expensive shopping trips with label name dropping.  I would like to see the 1939 film for comparison.  3 1/2* (I liked this movie) 

114 min, Comedy directed and written by Diane English with Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher, Cloris Leachman, Debi Mazar, India Ennenga, Jill Flint, Ana Gasteyer, Joanna Gleason, Tilly Scott Pedersen.

Note:  Imdb 5 out of 10 with 19,625 views, Rotten Tomatoes 14% with 148 critics 38% audience with 62,030 ratings, Roger Ebert 3*, Common Sense Media S. Jhoanna Robledo, age 15+, 1* violence, 3* sex, 3* language, 5* consumerism, 3* drinking, drugs, smoking, Amazon 4.3* out of 5* with 610 customer ratings, Letterboxd 2.3* out of 5*, Metacritic 27 out of 100 with 32 critics (positive 4, mixed 8, negative 20) 4.7 out of 10 (11 positive, 10 mixed, 17 negative), San Francisco Chronicle 50 David Wiegand, Vulture 50 David Edelstein, RollingStone 25 Peter Travers, Baltimore Sun 38 Michael Sragow, The Miami Herald 25 Rene Rodriguez.