Director: Nick Cassavetes
Writers: Melissa Stack
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton
Synopsis: After discovering her boyfriend is married, Carly soon meets the wife he’s been cheating on. And when yet another affair is discovered, all three women team up to plot mutual revenge on the three-timing SOB.
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DIRECTION
The Other Woman automatically will get praise amongst most women because it is about female empowerment. Before every person with no Y chromosome comes after me, I will say that I love romantic comedies as About Time was on my top 10 movie list of last year. My favorite film series is Underworld, so I respect and admire films that show female empowerment. The Other Woman is the perfect film that personifies the chick-flick genre as one man learns that you need to make sure you check your side-chicks Facebook and Twitter profiles because you never know how connected they are. Essentially, the direction of this film was horrendous. The Other Woman tries too hard to push sentimental moments in this film but they were quite frankly too long and boring. One particular scene that drove me nuts was towards the end when all three ladies are sitting on the beach. The scene felt like it was 2 hours long and was simply used to stretch the running time.
Grade: F
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SCRIPT
Carly (Cameron Diaz) is seen being courted by her lovely boyfriend Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Carly and Mark are shown having a joyous time and Carly feels like she has found the perfect beau. As we learn from a well-dressed-must-be-that-Young-Money success Nicki Minaj (Lydia) that Carly has had some trouble in the dating scene lately. It is pretty quickly that we meet Kate (Leslie Mann) bubbly, dutiful, housewife who in her own terms needs to go to “brain camp”. Carly one night shows up at Mark’s residence in high heels, hot-pants and a tool belt to “fix his plumbing”. Carly is shocked to find out that Kate is Mark’s wife and in one of many desperate jabs for laughs breaks a heel and destroys an urn. Before you know it, these circumstances lead to these two what I feel are perhaps the most “entertaining” scenarios in the film; namely, Mann freaking out about her life crumbling before her eyes and seeking out Diaz at every waking moment, who wants absolutely nothing to do with this raving lunatic. The film drags on and on until we learn that there is a third woman in Amber (Kate Upton). Amber has nothing to offer in this film except be eye candy for the male audience. Eventually, Amber joins the two women and all three set out to destroy Mark in the most non Tarantino way possible. I am kind of ashamed that the script was written by a female because she has zero respect for her own characters. In addition to Barbie, Kate is a brainless Stepford wife and Carly is reduced to tripping over heels and face planting into bushes (twice).
Grade: C-
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RELATED: Transcendence Movie Review
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PERFORMANCES
Mann and Diaz do the best they can with the script that is dryer than a bum’s elbow. There is only enough of their antics that you can take before you become bored and while Upton was okay, her character added nothing to the film. Surprisingly, Nicki Minaj was actually half-way decent in this film and Coster-Waldau did a great job of drafting his team. Mann was not nearly as good as she was in other films but her performance and actor was a result of the script. Diaz is an actresses that makes me cringe every time she is onscreen but I was able to tolerate her most of the film.
Grade: C
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SCORE
The score is pretty generic here and is mostly just noise. Also, playing the Mission Impossible theme during a “spy” mission is so cliched. Overall, the music here is not very good.
Grade: D
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FINAL THOUGHTS
I did not expect a great ending but the ending this film gives is pretty embarrassing and a slap in the face to the audience. The lone bright spot in this film was the dog, Thunder. Thunder was on point and hilarious.
