The Women: The Remake: The Review

OK, So I have been putting it off for several weeks since it came out, but I felt obliged to see this movie on your behalf, gentle reader. As you know, I was not predisposed to liking this movie, what with my visceral hatred of Meg Ryan and all. It should therefore come as no surprise that I ultimately did not care for this movie. I did not hate it, but neither did I love it.

First, let's stop the madness. This movie is not so much BASED ON the 1939 movie of the same name as a pitiful ripoff of INSPIRED BY the original. At best, it's a re-imagination. The names are the same and it's still New York high society, but the plot is different enough from the original movie as to be annoying without being at all unique or anything more than derivative. It was like watching a bad pilot of what might one day be a good show.

This movie is neither an homage to the original, where every detail of scene and dialogue is slavishly re-created, nor is it a modern re-telling of a classic. One of the problems I always had with the original was the almost casual way acceptance of the husband's infidelity as a woman's lot in life. I always fantasized about how similar situations would be handled in 2008.

Meg Ryan, visceral hatred aside, was OK. She was playing the same character she always does: befuddled, likeable woman stumbling her way through life. I thought her reactions were entirely inappropriate for given situations. For instance, when Mary Haines confronts Crystal Allen in the dressing room, she is neither aristocratically above the situation, looking down on Crystal from her high society perch, nor is she gutter-bucket ready to scratch her eyes out. Instead, she is milquetoast at best, practically begging Crystal to just be decent and stop seeing her husband.

That's another problem with this re-imagination. These Women aren't classy, high society dames. They are all good people, but in the original, these were wealthy, upper-eschelon people, above the sort of common trials and tribulations of mere mortals.

Standouts in the movie include Debra Messing as the eternally pregnant Edith, although it just seemed like she was playing an Upper West Side Grace Adler. Jada Pinkett-Smith does alot with little material as the LESBIAN!!! author Alex, and any movie that gives screen time to Candice Bergen and Cloris Leachman can't be all bad.