Filled with scheming, backbiting,
shifting allegiances, and cutting dialogue, George Cukor's 1939 film The
Women didn't always
present the most flattering picture of womanhood, but his camera always
flattered its subjects. That's only the first, and most obvious, difference
between the original and the new remake by longtime writer and producer turned
first-time director Diane English (best known for Murphy Brown). English's Women looks indifferent and sometimes
purposefully ugly, presenting its stars—most of whom have achieved "women
of a certain age" status—as flatteringly as pasta salad in a deli
counter.
If that were the only change, things
might still have worked out. English still had a great gimmick in the film's
all-female cast, and could draw on a town full of actresses who complain about
the difficulty of finding good roles for women. She also had page after page of
memorable dialogue from Clare Boothe Luce's original play (and the original
screenplay from Anita Loos and Jane Murfin). And while there's no way the 1939
film's attitudes—particularly its icky ending—would make it into a
2008 film, it still adds up to a head start. So how, instead of savage bon
mots, did we end up with Meg Ryan boasting about her sexual prowess by saying "I
could suck the nails out of a board"?
In a part originated by Norma
Shearer—who gave the impression she'd never heard of nails or boards,
much less fellatio—Meg Ryan plays a woman who learns her husband has
launched an affair with a scheming perfume-counter worker (Eva Mendes).
Fortunately, she has a crew of devoted, cartoonishly characterized friends to
help her out: magazine editor Annette Bening, constantly pregnant artist Debra
Messing, and lesbian author Jada Pinkett Smith (who conveys her sexuality by
chewing gum as if she were angry with it).
They come armed with quips. (On
Mendes: "What do you think she sells? Chanel Number Shit?") They also come
armed with huggy affirmations, and in Bening's case, a subplot about her job at
a women's magazine, where she occasionally feels a bit guilty about playing on
women's insecurities, in spite of intense pressure to stay the course. What
they don't come with is a vision for the movie, which is never clever or entertaining
enough to exist without one. A few old hands—Cloris Leachman, Bette
Midler, Candice Bergen—escape the black-hole-like pull of English's
dialogue, but it's mostly an embarrassment from start to finish. The original
was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.