They Should Just Go Away (The Women (DVD))

Member Name: JayHall1991

Product:	The Women (DVD)
Date:	14/06/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Performances

Disadvantages: Almost Everything Else

Mary has the perfect life; an intelligent daughter, a rich husband, a gorgeous house, great friends and a rich, compassionate husband. But when her best friend Sylvie, a successful but insecure magazine editor, finds out that Mary's husband is having an affair with a gorgeous perfume sampler at Saks Fifth Avenue she feels the need to Mary. So starts Mary of a journey of self discovery that she never imagined...

The Women should have been a warm, witty and relevant tale of female bonding, mending a broken heart and defining your life away from the expectations of others, but it really isn't. The main characters are too shallow to be interesting, the writing too scatterbrained to hold the audiences attention and the pacing too sluggish to really engage the audience. It does follow some interesting and potentially moving themes, although most critics don't seem to agree, and does have some fleeting moments of poignancy, but it can never outrun the story's inherent shallowness. Its attempts at social satire fail completely, amounting to little more than "hey women like expensive shoes", and the relationships between the main characters are unbelievable at best. The performances are uniformly excellent, although the hugely talented cast is hardly stretched, and the production values are fairly stylish; but the film falls largely flat in all the important aspects and comes across as an overly elaborate advertisement for Saks Fifth Avenue rather than a wedge of comedic or dramatic gold.

The main problem with The Women is that it doesn't really know how far it wants to go. On one hand it appear to be a scathing commentary on beauty magazine, bitchy socialites and the pressure to be thin, but then the next minute it shifts to being cuddly and saccharine. It's an uneasy and unsuccessful mix; the characters just don't warrant an emotional involvement and the screenplay mistakes broad physical comedy for venomous satire. English's screenplay is so worried about making the characters likeable (god forbid they actually appear human!) that they all come across as dull and self centred. Mary, the film's protagonist, goes on a somewhat interesting journey, but it isn't injected with any insight or storytelling grace. We are meant to root for her, and the rest of the characters, simply because we are told to rather than because they are interesting or compelling. English's writing is extremely lacklustre, featuring dialogue which is often laughable, and fails to make any of the situations feel based in any kind of reality. She brings things to a flabby conclusion and desperately tries to tack on some semblance of a happy ending, which is stupid and rings extremely hollow.

Instead of focussing on a few engaging stories The Women throws in hundreds of stock, flat characters which makes the film feel extremely unfocussed and scattered. Ensemble pieces have to have many compelling threads to make a multi-faceted whole but The Women doesn't. There are, maybe, two worthy dynamics out of hundreds of on-screen relationships (Mary and her daughter and Mary and her mother) and even they aren't handled particularly well. However, English appears to be a better director than she is a writer as does make the film engaging through bright, breezy visuals and some unique visual flourishes. She tries to make some of the film's sadder sequences poignant through a well chosen soundtrack, moody lighting and some successful shifts in tone and pace. She seems to genuinely believe in her story, although I can't think why, and so does bring some passion and drive to the proceedings. But she does seem to let go of the reins frequently, including an outrageously and dangerously handled eating disorder sub-plot, and has real difficulty getting any laughs from the screenplay's anaemic comedic spikes. And her lack of directorial skill is particularly evident during and appalling and laughable confrontation between Mary and her husband's mistress.

Meg Ryan is a capable and hugely likeable lead, and here she goes some way to bringing vitality and life to her rather one dimensional role. She still garners a surprising amount of goodwill from the audience and does a good job of instilling intelligence and some kind of substance to Mary. Her comic timing is largely on point and she is believable as a hurt divorcee. She is perhaps the most appealing member of the cast but she is ably supported by the strong presence of Cloris Leachman who portrays Mary's housekeeper with wit, comedic strength and steely determination. Jada Pinkett Smith is attractive but offers very little in a one note role but Annette Benning is fairly successful at playing the irritating character of Sylvie with at least some heart and warmth. Bette Midler brings a jolt of energy to the proceedings with a hap-hazard but amusingly surreal little cameo and Carrie Fischer is smart and slimey in a pivotal, but brief, appearance. The only true weak link here is Debra Messing who is whiny and grating and offers very little to the film. She seems to appear randomly and just doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the cast; she seems as if she is acting in a whole different movie. Ironically, the best performance of the piece comes from the most inexperienced cast member, India Ennenga is realistic and emotive as Mary's daughter Molly, who id suffering as a result on her parents painful divorce.

The Women never gets away from the cynical and unpleasant undertones of it's screenplay. The characters, and the things they do to each other, just aren't very nice and as a result it is really hard for the audience to get on board with them. It sells itself as a sort of Sex and the City off-cast, it was only given a distribution deal after the financial success of the continuing adventures of Sarah Jessica Parker and co, but it is hard to see who would actually be compelled to care about The Women's story. Admittedly, I wasn't the biggest fan of The Sex and the City franchises first cinematic outing; but at least it was brave and tried to say something. The Women has no rhyme or reason to it; it skips along happily, sashaying from one ridiculous et piece to another, but fails to have an actual point. It may as well have been an endless run of advertisements because it lacks a centre, a beating heart which would have made the fussy dialogue and shabby plotting worth while. The audience is left lost, searching for meaning where there is none.

Overall, The Women feels like a television pilot, a format which may have actually suited the subject matter more snugly; it has interesting idea bubbling under the surface but they aren't strung together.

Summary: A Shallow and SIlly CHick Flick