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!"
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