Seen on: September 14, 2008

The players: Director: Diane English, Writer: Diane English, Cast: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith

Facts of interest: Remake of the 1939 classic "The Women."

The plot: The film follows the adventures of four best friends who help support each other in times of misery.

Our quick thoughts: Diane English’s “The Women” is one huge and utterly boring mess. No, I don’t hate this film because I’m a guy or because you think I don’t understand the nature of its subject matter. I sure do appreciate plenty of chick flicks, I always enjoy a good Nancy Meyers film, and I even think quite positively about the two “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” movies.

But this dreadful experience just made me sit in my chair feeling cheated out of my money and time. And why? Because there’s nothing here we haven’t seen yet in countless other films of the same genre. Worse than that, the way writer-director Diane English presents this old material devoid of anything remotely refreshing or amusing.

Set in New York City, “The Women” centers on Mary (Meg Ryan), Sylvia (Annette Bening), Edie (Debra Messing) and Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith), four best friends who like to hang out and chat about their feelings just like the women of “Sex and the City.” But when Sylvia finds out Mary’s husband is having an affair with the women (Eva Mendes) behind the Chanel perfume counter at Saks, things quickly get out of hand.

That’s all I’m going to tell you about the main story line. You won’t encounter many surprises in the film anyway, but I don’t want to spoil it all for you right here. Anyway, as hard as it may be to believe, “The Women” feels like a slow-moving train never reaching its final destination. The plot heads into several directions at the same time, creating plenty of shallow subplots that never receive the development they deserve.

English tries to focus on so many things at once, but she constantly fails to come up with something that would add a little more depth to her characters. Whether it’s the attempt to set up a problematic relationship between Mary and her daughter, or a fight between Mary and Sylvia over a selfish decision, English just spends a couple of scenes with issues before quickly dropping them and moving to the next one.

Besides feeling pretty emotionless throughout the film’s long 114 minutes, I never stumbled across a single opportunity to laugh. People sitting around me could barely breathe because they were laughing so loud (they actually laughed at every single scene), but I just had the worst troubles finding anything funny in this film. The very last scene of the movie deserves a giggle or two, but other than that, “The Women” is one of the driest comedies I’ve seen in a long time.

Meg Ryan and Annette Bening get a whole lot more screen time than the rest of the cast, but both their characters still end up just as shallow as the rest of them. I just don’t know what would make them interesting people. It sure cannot be the badly timed dialogue. Performances by Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Candice Bergen and Eva Mendes simply go unnoticed.

Freaky quote: “Oh is this about the perfume bitch?" – Meg Ryan

The final word: I cannot imagine a world without women, but I sure can imagine a world without this disastrous movie. I didn’t like the big-screen version of “Sex and the City” that much, but I still had a much better experience watching Carrie do her thing versus following the melodramatic misadventures of English’s gang. Maybe you had a much better time than I did while watching this, and maybe you couldn’t stop laughing. In that case, I’m happy for you. At least your investment paid off.           

Article by Franck Tabouring