Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #605 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-03-16
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Synopsis
Packed with an all-star cast, Diane English's (MURPHY BROWN) contemporary version of THE WOMEN showcases the talents of Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Candice Bergen, and Debra Messing. Like the 1939 original, the film deals with the relationships among a close-knit group of female friends, who, when their marriages fail and their lives are on the verge of falling apart, turn to each other for support. On the surface, Mary (Ryan) appears the happiest of the bunch, but her life changes instantly when her best friend Sylvia (Bening) discovers that Mary's husband's having an affair. The actresses frequently appear on screen as an ensemble, exhibiting a relaxed, compelling chemistry. The film feels cluttered at times, but perhaps that is fitting considering how much each female character has on her plate with regards to family, work, marriage, and friendship. Eva Mendes appears as the jaw-dropping beauty who is partially to blame for the fallout of Mary's marriage. As Mary's mother and the voice of wisdom, Bergen delivers the film's best lines with sarcasm, wit, and charm.


As in the SEX AND THE CITY movie, the message here seems to be that before finding love with a man, a woman must truly love and know herself. While Mary's high-society social standing enables her to start a fashion line on a whim and makes her self-transformation somewhat easy, female viewers from all walks of life are likely to recognize something relatable in the many women characters driving the film. One nice touch is that while much of the drama surrounds various marital problems, even the cheating husband in question never appears on screen. When you get down to it, the film's most important relationships are between the women themselves.

Customer Reviews

You'll Laugh, You'll cry. you'll sleep
A group of friends rally round Mary as her cheating husband tears her world apart. That's it! In the now popular tradition this is hoped to be held together by the sheer weight of stars involved. Annette Benning is as reliable as ever as she plays a treacherous career woman,(apparently your friends cheating on you is worse than your spouse!), Jada Pinkett Smith is given no lines, just angry looks, as a Lesbian writer,(a relationship with a model is set up & then forgotten about), Debra Messing is made to look scruffy and a pig because she's a 'breeder'( and of course her kids are uncontrollable little ratbags), Eva Mendes is eye candy, Bette Midler makes a brief appearance but is not given a single funny line & Meg Ryan plays the same character she has always played since she claimed the rom-com title as her own, the put-upon but lovable quiet one. The only actress given a chance is Candice Bergen & god bless her she is the only person to walk away from this unholy mess with her held held high.
The idea of having no men is surely to reinforce the understanding that women apart from men are fine thank you very much but instead the plot belittles that at every turn. Ryan's character not only falls to bits at her hubbies infidelities, keeps hankering after him, fails as a mother and friend but in the end is only happy when the unfaithful git begs to come back to her! Bennings character is destroyed by her being a career woman and even Bergen's mother has had to ignore her husbands unfaithfulness in order to survive. The icing on the whole cake is that they are all stock hollywood characters who are all rolling in money.
This is so confused that it could only be saved by some really sharp scripting. Unfortunately these proven & reliable actors are given nothing to work with, no humour, no insight & no depth. Add to this the ridiculous running time of 1hr 50 mins & the whole thing outstays it's welcome by a good 30 mins. Did the editor fall asleep?
If you want Meg Ryan doing her thing,( I'm not being snide, she really does rom com well), then 'French kiss' or 'Sleepless in Seattle' are great, if you want some reality then 'Friends with money' is excellent and if you're after the reality of a breakup then 'the breakup' is a painful but insightful watch. Of course if you really want to see how you don't need to cut the male of the species out of a film for it to show a multi-layered look at how women cope with relationships then 'American beauty' is unmissable and will leave you wondering why I was so generous & gave this sad mess a whole 2 stars!

Absolutely fine
The Women is an interesting one. It's the very chickiest of chick flicks inasmuch as, you won't glimpse a single chap on screen the entire time. You'll not even hear one on the phone... and you may not even realise until the end credits.

Oh, there's nothing particularly wonderful or particularly rubbish about this film. It's just inoffensive and tepid and a perfectly adequate way to spend a couple of hours. It's a tamer version of Sex and the City, really: 4 women doing lunch in New York before shopping. Except when Ryan's character discovers her husband is having an affair with a perfume spritzer (Eva Mendez who, admittedly, is bloody gawjus) her life starts to tumble down.

The focus of the film, though, is female friendship. It's an homage to the nature of friendship, and it's charming in that respect... it's just the ancillary stuff - affairs, prodigious pregnancies, lesbianism - that steers it back to standard chick-flickery and ultimately detracts from the real story.

The performances are uniformly good - none of the actresses are tested in any way, and it's all perfectly nice.

Best watched on a Summer afternoon with girly friends, sunshine and a glass of chilled white wine in hand.

The Women
The Plot
Upstate New York mum, wife and socialite Mary (Meg Ryan) has the perfect life until she finds out about the infidelity of her husband with sex bomb Crystal (Eva Mendes). After talking to multiple divorcee Leah Miller (Bette Midler) she decides to take control and get on with her life. But these events put her relationship with best friend Sylvie (Annette Bening) to the test.

The Review
The old saying goes never judge a book by its cover. Well, who cares about old sayings, as we all do it anyway. Therefore, on viewing the trailer for The Women, this review was going to start, "The Women is simply a poor women's Sex and the City." After viewing, this review is now going to start as so...

The Women is simply a destitute woman's Sex and the City. Attempting to pitch itself into the already over crowded rom-com market, the sort remake of the 1939 George Cukor's classic feature has a hell of a lot of sappy, melodramatic rom, and very, very little com.

As with Sex and the City, The Women is centred on a group of four best friends. Meg Ryan, plus her reconstructed and botox laden face, is at the centre of the film. Her character Mary follows the traditional cheated on wife storyline - she goes from down in the dumps victim, to reinvigorated `I don't need no man' women, complete with sexy new look. Original, eh?

The rest of the cast haven't much else to do, but fill their assigned roles as one of `The Women'. Annette Bening does her best impression of Kim Cattrall's Samantha - the single, aging tough nut, who actually has a soft centre. Debra Messing (or her from Will and Grace) plays the mother of four, who loves being a mom more than anything else. And Jada Pinkett Smith (or Will Smith's wife) manages to kill two birds with one stone by being both black and a lesbian - talk about multi-tasking.

This mish-mash of actresses simply doesn't work, as they fail to gel with each other, resulting in a distinct lack of chemistry between them on screen, with the latter two characters being mere irritants, and all actresses involved merely phoning in their performances.

What makes The Women all the more painful is the long, meandering script of writer/director Diane English. It's full of typical heartfelt clichés and very few laughs, drawing the process out for all it's worth. Even when she does have the chance to inject a bit of colour into this dull feature, such as the first meeting between wife and mistress, she completely cops out, instead replacing it with a feminist debate about having it all and still being a good wife, mother and friend. The few lines which were reserved for the older actresses, including Candice Bergen, as Mary's mother, delivered one of the only laughs of the film - "Face lift at two o'clock! She looks like she's re-entering the atmosphere!"

The Verdict
The gimmick which both original and remake share in common is that not one single man appears in either film. Why is this? Well, any self-respecting actor wouldn't be caught dead in this snooze-fest.