Sunday, April 27, 2014

The Other Woman (2014) Review

Rated PG-13 (Mature Thematic Material, Sexual References and Language)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 49 Minutes

Cast-
Cameron Diaz-Carly Whitten
Leslie Mann-Kate King
Kate Upton-Amber
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau-Mark King
Taylor Kinney-Phil
Don Johnson-Frank Whitten
Nicki Minaj-Lydia
David Thornton-Nick
Alyshia Ochse-Cece
Victor Cruz-Fernando

Directed by Nick Cassavetes

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned in Nick Cassavetes' romantic comedy "The Other Woman."
Note: Screened on Thursday, April 17, 2014 at Regal Union Square Stadium 14.

Nick Cassavetes' "The Other Woman"—which curiously shares the same title as Don Roos' 2011 indie drama starring Natalie Portman—is a film that, by all rights, I should've hated. In his review, Dustin Putman notes that the premise, if handled without the right care, would've reduced the three female lead characters into 'desperate, petty, and infantile' women, 'no better than the man who initially crossed them' but that's exactly what the trailers portrayed them to be and it didn't help that these previews were completely bereft of laughs. The guest who tagged along with me to the advance screening expressed that she was 'really excited' to see the film but I couldn't muster up the same level of enthusiasm. For me, this was one of those times where my hobby felt like work. Well color me surprised because "The Other Woman" turned out to be a lot better than I expected and it's all ironically thanks to a certain Mann…Leslie Mann, to be specific. Cassavetes doesn't fully capitalize on the premise and the film never quite settles into a consistent tone but Mann—and to a lesser extent, her two co-stars—manage to offer enough solid laughs, elevating the weak material into something enjoyably watchable.

What was supposed to be a one-night stand for high-powered New York City lawyer Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz) and successful businessman Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) quickly turns into a serious relationship, with Carly believing that she's finally found the man of her dreams. However, she becomes upset when Mark bails at the last minute on plans to meet her much-married father Frank (Don Johnson) due to a plumbing issue at his house in Connecticut. Following her father's advice, Carly decides to let Mark's sudden flakiness slide and she shows up unannounced at his home with plans to seduce him but the person who answers the door turns out to be his wife, Kate (Leslie Mann)! Angry at the deception, Carly resolves to move on with her life while Kate suffers a nervous breakdown as the discovery of her husband's indiscretion shatters her picturesque life as a suburban housewife. With no one to turn to, Kate latches onto Carly, with the two gradually befriending each other due to their shared experience of being burned by the same man. They resolve to get some major payback and secretly follow Mark to his second house in the Hamptons. While there, the women learn that Mark has another mistress, the younger, knockout-gorgeous Amber (Kate Upton). Recruiting the blonde bombshell into their revenge scheme, Carly and Kate set out to make Mark pay dearly for his cheating ways.

Featuring a setup that has elicited comparisons to Hugh Wilson's 1996 hell-hath-no-fury comedy "The First Wives Club," Nick Cassavetes' "The Other Woman" doesn't quite fully take advantage of its high-concept premise, with novice screenwriter Melissa K. Stack (who caught Hollywood's attention when her script "I Want To F*ck Your Sister" landed on the 2007 Black List) resorting to using the same old clichés that audiences have seen countless times before in many a romantic comedy. Despite the story devolving into a series of silly pratfalls and poop jokes, this female-driven revenge comedy remains weirdly compelling. The reason for that is Leslie Mann, an incredibly gifted comic actress who has the rare ability to play these zany, over-the-top characters yet still remain grounded and sympathetic. With her high-pitched voice, Mann's comedic shtick is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing at this point but I've yet to tire of it. Who else can turn a simple joke about needing to go to 'brain camp' into comedy gold? Although her character Kate can come across like a live-action cartoon, Mann remains thoroughly endearing in the role. Fed up with her constant crying, Carly tells Kate to 'cry on the inside, like a winner' and the resulting expression that she makes approaches a sort of puppy-dog adorableness. Besides being a 'whirling dervish of laughs' (an apt descriptor from Cinema Blend's Sean O'Connell), Mann remembers that there are real emotions driving her character's actions as underneath her wacky, bubbly persona is a woman who is forced to come to terms with the fact that her picturesque suburban marriage is built on nothing but lies. In her hands, Mann turns what is inherently an absurd character into a fully-realized person and without the actress' presence, "The Other Woman" would've been much, much worse.

Mann is well-paired with Cameron Diaz, whose icy, tell-it-like-it-is turn as Carly helps to balance out Kate's goofiness. The two actresses make for a funny comedic duo and not only share great chemistry on-screen but also vastly elevate the weak material. There's a sequence where they secretly tail Mark during his 'business trip' in the Hamptons and it's hard not to laugh as Carly and Kate clumsily skulk around with their binoculars while Lalo Schifrin's "Mission: Impossible" theme plays in the background. In her first major film role, Kate Upton is amusingly ditzy as blonde bombshell Amber, with Cassavetes working around her limited range by giving the Sports Illustrated model as little dialogue as possible and relying more on sight gags. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, famous for his ongoing role as Jaime Lannister on HBO's "Game of Thrones," proves to be a good sport as his character Mark suffers one indignity after another, such as being fed laxatives and daily doses of estrogen by the women he cheated on. Don Johnson turns on the charm in what is essentially a paycheck role while Taylor Kinney, who plays Kate's handsome contractor brother Phil, is affable and serves as not only a convenient new love interest for Carly but also as the film's token acknowledgment that not all men are lying, cheating scumbags. Finally, there's singer Nicki Minaj, whose sassy portrayal of Carly's assistant Lydia delivers a few chuckles but she really needs to work on her speaking voice. It's very fortunate that her screen-time is limited because her whiny inflection would've been grating if I had to listen to it for more than five minutes.

Released on April 25, 2014, "The Other Woman" has received overwhelmingly negative reviews with a paltry 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics noted that it 'definitely boasts a talented pedigree, but all that skill is never fully brought to bear on a story that settles for cheap laughs instead of reaching its empowering potential.' To be honest, I'm not really surprised by this reaction. The script is riddled with clichés, the comedy is hamstrung by its PG-13 rating (leading to some rather poor ADR dubbing), and the film's themes of female empowerment frequently clash with the lowbrow humor. Despite these issues, I still enjoyed the film because it succeeded in what a comedy is supposed to do, which is to make you laugh. "The Other Woman" may not be particularly memorable or sophisticated but as far as mainstream romantic comedies go, you can certainly do a lot worse.

Final Rating: 3 out of 5

"Put the lawyer, the wife, and the boobs together and we know how to do it just as shady as he does!"