The fact I have seen the 1939 original Joan Crawford version of The Women is something that really surprises me. I saw it while reviewing a collection of Crawford DVDs and never once thought I would end up seeing a remake of the film based on a popular play. The new version is similar in tone and perhaps only slightly more sexed up than the Crawford film, but for the most part I would say they complement one another and should satisfy any middle-aged female crowd that has already delighted in this summer’s Mamma Mia! because quality is obviously not important. Then again, if you are able to look beneath this film’s surface on any level you will notice the hypocrisy throughout and you may find yourself hating the entire thing.
This Diane English redo has actually been a long time in the making and at one point included the likes of Sandra Bullock, Uma Thurman, Lisa Kudrow, Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts and Ashley Judd with James Brooks (Spanglish) set to direct. Instead, English fell into the director’s chair, helming her own material. Uma Thurman was replaced by Eva Mendes. Annette Bening remained in the film, but moved from being the wronged housewife (now played by Meg Ryan) and became her best friend along with Jada Pinkett Smith and Debra Messing. I guess that’s what happens when three-years pass and actresses begin to show their age. Then again what has happened to the Meg Ryan we all once knew may never be known.
For the most part this redo is relatively harmless, and will primarily serve its niche audience which is going to be women primarily 40 years and above, while it still may find some traction with younger girls, but girls nonetheless. After all, there isn’t a single male in this film, at least not for all but about 30 seconds of it. Yup, a stroll down the streets of NYC is filled with estrogen and it is a rather interesting way to present the film but it keeps up its appeal to its target audience.
The highlight of the feature has to be Jada Pinkett-Smith and Debra Messing. Pinkett is a lesbian and hardly fits in with the group stereotype of upper-class snob, but it is a needed addition to break up the monotony. I was never able to fully gauge the social standing of Messing’s character, but she is certainly well enough off to keep popping out kids while living in New York City and carrying on with her hoity-toity friends. Her attitude toward friendship is certainly her character’s most attractive trait and it gives her a series of good lines inside the flick.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem comes when you look at the film beyond that surface level. Meg Ryan plays Mary, a working mom who finds out her Wall Street husband is cheating on her with the spritzer girl from Macy’s (Mendes). It’s a laughable concept you simply have to accept.
Mary is living in a palatial estate with her husband and young daughter without a worry of money, all while two house maids do her bidding. She’s hardly roughing it. She kicks her husband out of the house, is fired from her job in which her father was her boss and begins to ignore her daughter and veg out around the house. This is the person we are supposed to care for and she ultimately has to lift herself up by her own bootstraps and take on the world of fashion with a line of her own thanks to her mother’s (Candice Bergen) financial donation. Basically, this woman has had everything handed to her her entire life and even when the going gets rough and she would have to try and find investors on her own she is bailed out by her mother.
Through the use of Annette Bening’s character’s position at a high-profile fashion magazine the film paints this picture of negative side of society by focusing on the material and how those women you see in the fashion magazines are air-brushed and how no one is that pretty or that skinny. Bening’s character even has a talk with Ryan’s increasingly rebellious daughter, telling her these exact things. However, late in the film there is a fashion show modeled from a similar scene in the 1939 original in which pencil thin models show off Ryan’s fashion line as paid for by her mother. The show is considered a success and everything looks “beautiful!” Yeah, this film reeks of hypocrisy and it really drags it all the way down.
I am not sure if any of this was the intention of writer/director Diane English or an overlooked fact, but when you are making a film about the independence of women and beat down stereotypes and public image on one end and support it on the other you really aren’t servicing anyone. I just wonder how many married women have been cheated on and felt right about forgiving their spouses. A question based on the answers this film gives me.
D+
