MOVIE REVIEW: The Women

I made a horrible mistake in choosing a weekend movie to see. My loving and energetic mother saw "Tyler Perry’s The Family that Preys" and gave it rave reviews. She called when she left the theater and said “See it, see it, see it!” (You really should listen to your mother!) Earlier in the week, I talked to my co-worker, Faith, about going to see Meg Ryan’s “comeback” movie, “The Women”. So we kept our agreement also because Faith had gone to see The Family Saturday and loved it, but I didn’t want her to spend money seeing it again. Another coworker, Perna, joined us to see The Women.

The “dollar store version” of the Sex and the City movie had an array of problems and had pretty high expectations, from the public and me, since it had a great female cast: Annette Bening, Debra Messing (who I loved in Will & Grace), Jada Pinkett Smith, Cloris Leachman, Bette Midler, and Candice Bergen. Oh and there were no men in the entire movie, which I think is pretty stupid.

Faith and Perna weren’t impressed either. We whispered the film’s problems to each other - like how unrealistic it is for THIS group of women to BE friends and have a BLACK friend like Jada’s character. May I add – a forgettable character – like Jada’s character whose name in the movie I don’t even remember. Wait - I don’t remember any of the character’s names really. Jada played a lesbian author. She was loud and outspoken, but that’s really all.

I was sickened when Meg’s character, Mary, took time to “find” herself. TOTALLY UNREALISTIC. Real, everyday people aren’t rich and don’t have months to dissect why their rich, businessman husbands cheated on them with “the spritzer girl at Saks.” Like seriously! I’m over the rich people in my movies. Can we see some real women with real problems and real ways to deal with that crap?!

One hour and 33 minutes into the film I leaned over and said to Faith and Perna, “I hope this movie is over soon.” I/We weren’t so lucky. It lasted another 40 minutes with the typical, victorious, “cheated on woman” ending. No need to dissect it.

The only people who could have enjoyed this were: Saks, Lexus, and Dove thanks to the “over the top” product placement.

This film lacked character development and laughter. Plus it ended with a wannabee funny labor scene when Debra Messing’s character gave birth. This was soooo not even close to the level of SATC (previous review: http://joycebrewer.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-saw-sex-and-city.html) because I didn’t give a who-ha about the broads in this movie and never will. What a waste of $6.50 and two hours of my life.

Meg Ryan – you should have picked a better movie to make your “comeback” movie. Better luck next time!