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Film Is All Boutique, No Bite

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By CHRISTY LEMIRE

The Associated Press

Published: September 11, 2008

Updated:

Somehow, Diane English has managed to make the "Sex and the City" movie look like a documentary.

With her remake of George Cukor's 1939 catfight "The Women," based on the play by Clare Booth Luce, English has applied all the lighthearted instincts of her sitcom background and seemingly none of the insights of the source material.

"The Women" was intended as a satire of society mavens and their frivolous lives; in directing for the first time and writing the script, the "Murphy Brown" creator has turned it into a celebration. Sure, it has an all-female cast of solid actresses, as did the original (though perhaps not quite the stellar collection that included Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell).

But Cukor's tone and timing are missing: It's as if English has included all the boutiques but none of the bite.

Meg Ryan does her patented cutesy thing in the Shearer role as Mary Haines, a wealthy Connecticut wife and mother who learns that her husband is having an affair. The other woman? Still the perfume girl at the Saks Fifth Avenue cosmetics counter, the role that helped catapult Crawford to fame, played here with cartoony va-va-voominess by Eva Mendes.

Mary's friends, including magazine editor Sylvie Fowler (Annette Bening), rally around her in her time of need, offering snappy one-liners and broad facial expressions. Basically, their support consists of that great female pick-me-up, shopping.

Considering the potentially meaty issues these women are facing - marriage, motherhood, career, identity - all their troubles wrap up way too quickly and neatly. Mary whips up one of those self-help vision boards - you know, the kind Oprah espouses - and she figures it all out in no time.

Debra Messing's character, a hippie artist, gets little more to do than pop out babies, which sets up the kind of lazy ending you would find in the most hackneyed chick flick. Meanwhile, Jada Pinkett Smith as a predatory lesbian novelist feels like even more of an afterthought.

MOVIE REVIEW

The Women *½

MOVIE BOARD RATING: PG-13; sex-related material, profanity, some drug use and smoking

STARS: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett Smith

DIRECTOR: Diane English

LOCATION: See Movie Times, Page 9, for local showtimes.

PLOT SUMMARY: A woman needs her friends' support when her husband has an affair.

RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes

ON THE WEB: www.thewomenthemovie.com/index.html

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