Rated PG-13 for sex-related material, language, some drug use and brief smoking.
Recommended for ages 14 and up
Run Time: 114 minutes
Quick Take: Mothers can find better ways to teach daughters about female empowerment than with this hollow cinematic cheerleading squad.
The Story: Happily married Mary Haines is living the privileged life of a society wife, hosting luncheons and kibbutzing with her best buds until a gossipy manicurist at Saks blabs a secret: Mr. Steven Haines is having an affair. Counseled by her mother to keep up appearances, Mary keeps up the stoic façade until she can take it no longer, and throws Steven out. With the support of her friends, Mary goes about her business reinventing herself as an independent woman and a single mother.
Good If You Liked: In the Land of Women, Stepmom, When Harry Met Sally
Related Features:
Heads Up: It's not as graphic as Sex and the City, but there is plain talk about sex, diaphragms and orgasms, as well as about Alex's lesbian relationships. Off-color references abound. Example: When Mary, not yet clued into Steven's affair, comments that "Work is sucking the life out of him," Sylvie responds slyly, "Well, something certainly is." Molly smokes, cuts school, wears inappropriate clothing and talks back to her mother.
More Recent Movies:
The Women: Lots of Chatter, Little to Say
Somewhere in Diane English's new remake of The Women, there's a message.
Maybe it's that a husband can't deliver a woman's sense of self-worth. Or perhaps it's that a woman can't fully share herself until she knows who she is. Or maybe it's that nothing says "independent woman" like an expensive salon blowout.
It's hard to tell.
The comedy slash women's-empowerment movie slash very special episode of Sex and the City would have done a whole lot better if it decided what it wanted to be. Unlike the delicious 1939 George Cukor original, which made delectable folly out of that era's clawed society dames, English's turn seems to embark on a grander plan, offering a valentine to women via four comically privileged, self-involved ladies who nevertheless bonk us on the head with messages ranging from "Women power!" to "Love your body!" to "Bitterness leads to Botox!" Talk about having your cake and...well, you know.
The remake casts Meg Ryan as Mary, curly-topped, flat-shoed earth mother and uber-wife whose life is cast adrift at the discovery that her husband is having an affair with a femme fatale (Eva Mendes). The dalliance becomes fodder for friends, family and domestic staff -- women all (the remake, like the original, is testosterone-free) -- who offer cheeky advice and one-liners about sex, facelifts and lingerie. The quartet of friends (a cinematic cliché these days) includes Sylvie (Annette Benning rehearsing for her career's second act as Christine Baranski), Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Edie (Debra Messing). Along for the ride, Candace Bergen (as Mary's mom), Cloris Leachman and Bette Midler get the best lines and steal pretty much every scene they're in.
What might have been merely mediocre fluff (maybe even likeable mediocre fluff) sinks under all the empty "empowerment" speak, not to mention an unfortunate subplot about Mary's 12-year-old daughter Molly, a girl who acts out like a kid who's read a textbook on teen angst. "I hate my body," she says to Sylvie the magazine editor. "I want to look like those models in your magazine." Molly is later "cured" by her mother's new spa-toned, straight-haired, fashionista extreme makeover. (Mary, by the way, now designs clothes for sub-zero models.) Let's just say it makes you wonder about the conversations that will take place in Molly's inevitable future therapy sessions.
It might have helped if Mary's transformation appeared less superficial. Hitting bottom is a run-in with a stick of butter (one of the film's funniest moments), and an "extended" period of soul searching is illustrated by a trip to a spa, a few scribbles on a sketchpad, and a time-lapsed view of the switch to more adventurous sleepwear. The coup de grâce comes from mom who, fresh from her own face lift and so impressed with her daughter's confident and sleek new look, offers her large inheritance to finance Mary's career aspirations. Nothing says successful "independent" woman like an infusion of family money.
Except, maybe, a great blowout.
Kids Will Like:
If you can't tell from the title, this one is a girls' movie -- though only teen girls would be interested or of the right age to see it. Still, much of the inter-women chat may go over kids' heads, though they may be amused (and embarrassed) by the plain talk between these older characters. Some may be able to relate to young Molly, at least to the extent that body image at the pre-teen and teen age is tough. Moms and daughters will laugh together when Mary vividly illustrates what women will do when they need -- must have! -- junk food.
Parents Will Like:
Truly, this one's more for moms (and maybe dads) than kids. One-liners from Candace Bergen and Cloris Leachman are very funny, particularly as they pertain to cosmetic surgery. On some level, such lines spoken by cosmetically enhanced actresses sound even funnier.
0 |
