Ahhh the hilarious world of serial adultery.
——-
“The Other Woman” stars Cameron Diaz as a woman trying to get her life back together after finding out her boyfriend actually has a wife and another girlfriend on the side, and what happens when the three of them team up to get revenge on the filthy philanderer. Leslie Mann plays the wife caught unaware and let’s just start with her, since she is easily the best thing about this movie.
——-
The girl is funny. Like really funny. I mean, I know, Cameron Diaz is the “star” who has a history of playing some very funny roles, and she’s not awful in this, but Leslie Mann is lapping her and everyone else with laughs in this otherwise less than mediocre movie. She just has this simple matter of fact psychological fragility that translates perfectly for this character. And If the movie works at all it’s in providing a few laughs here and there throughout the plot and Mann is almost always ground zero for that effect. The movie also attempts some serious drama to balance out the hi jinks and though there are some brief moving moments, again mostly due to our Mann Leslie, the drama is really where the movie starts to fall apart.
——–
The movie just can’t earn it’s substance. I mean I think it’s trying to make some sort of point about feminism and empowerment and maybe even the pain of disloyalty and unfaithfulness but it’s hard for it to resonate when so much of the rest of the movie is ridiculous to the point of silliness. Not that you can’t mine depth from a broad comedy, we’ve seen it done many time before, but with this the world just feels so unrealistic that any sort of attempt at heart falls mostly flat. Plus, there is a lightness to the approach on the topic of infidelity that feels somewhat disrespectful to anyone who may have had to deal with the reality of it in their own life. All of these issues merge together at the end of the film with a climax so relentlessly over the top and slapstick that the three stooges would have been embarrassed to be caught watching it.
——–
At the end of the day, “The Other Woman” is a tired attempt to take adultery and turn it into broad comedy, though very little of it hits home in the way it attempts to, a laugh out loud performance by Leslie Mann manages to hoist the final score up to a C+.
——–
Thanks for checking out this Your Movie Friend review, stay tuned for this review’s “Best Ever” challenge here in bit but first, I’m going to put up some stuff you can click over in this area. If you’d like to subscribe, which I would much appreciate, you can do so by clicking the big gray subscribe button. Want to see more? Here are my reviews of the other two movies out this weekend “The Quiet Ones” and “Brick Mansions”. You can also Click the logo up here to go to yourmoviefriend.com where you can search by title for reviews. And finally this review’s “Best Ever” Challenge, where you name the best movie ever in a particular category and also try to identify my choice. What is the “the best female ensemble movie ever”. Why do I feel like I’m going to get made fun of no matter what I pick here? Honestly my favorite is the one that involved clothing sent through the mail. I’m never gonna live this down. Drop your own answer and a guess at mine in the comments and first person to guess mine gets a point! Thanks and please subscribe!