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Women, The
Picturehouse

Women, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 27 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
2.8 out of 10
based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sex-related material, language, some drug use and brief smoking

Starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Eva Mendes, Cloris Leachman, Candice Bergen, and Bette Midler

The Women is a comedy about contemporary womanhood and the power of female relationships. Based on George Cukor’s 1939 film and Clare Boothe Luce’s 1936 stage play, The Women whisks us into a busy pocket of Manhattan society, where the publishing, fashion and finance industries play. At the center of the tale is Mary Haines, a thoroughly modern woman suddenly confronted with an age-old dilemma: a cheating husband. The ladies in her life swiftly rally to Mary’s side, led by her best friend, Sylvie Fowler, a dynamic magazine editor. But when Sylvie betrays Mary in a Faustian bargain, the entire group is shaken to the core – and two women face the most painful breakup of all - their friendship. (Picturehouse)


GENRE(S): Comedy  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Clare Boothe Luce (play)
Anita Loos (1939 screenplay)
Jane Murfin (1939 screenplay)
Diane English
 
DIRECTED BY: Diane English  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: September 12, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
As a well-crafted, well-written and well-acted entertainment, it drew me in and got its job done.
Read Full Review
75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
It's intermittently amusing, and Bening actually gives a performance instead of a star turn, but the claws should have been sharper.
Read Full Review
63
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
English wrangles her talent like a virtuoso. Best is Murphy Brown herself, Candice Bergen.
Read Full Review
63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
This is Diane English's directing debut, and it shows. Also in evidence is her familiarity with television. The movie is shot like a TV show, with frequent intercut close-ups.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle David Wiegand
Very earnest, often engaging, but not quite as much of a pleasure as the original.
Read Full Review
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Feels the scratches of too much time and tinkling and is as disjointed as a dislocated shoulder.
Read Full Review
50
New York Magazine David Edelstein
It's fascinating trying to separate the thirties material from the mostly maladroit additions.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
The film repeatedly sacrifices dramatic punch for political correctness.
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50
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie is a feminist lesson instead of what it should have been (and once was): a tough, synthetic, high-gloss entertainment that wears its heart on its lacquered fingernails.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
For all its current political incorrectness, the original film at least attacked hypocrisy; this one practises it.
Read Full Review
40
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Becomes unfocused as it stumbles over all the points it wants to make.
Read Full Review
40
Variety Peter Debruge
The Women is less about getting even than about inspiring that same mushy sense of female empowerment you might find in a Tyler Perry meller, complete with manic mood swings and full-blown diva moments.
Read Full Review
38
Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson
It's a high-powered cast, but it has painfully little to work with, apart from widely varying humor.
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38
Premiere Emily Rems
It would be sad if Tinseltown used this poorly executed remake as proof that there's no audience for female-driven films, because that's not the case at all.
Read Full Review
38
USA Today Claudia Puig
Defanged and drippy, the remake of 1939's The Women seems to have been made for the dullard granddaughters of the sassy, sharp society matrons in George Cukor's campy original.
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38
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This Women doesn't take place in reality or even in a glamorous urban fantasyland. It's strictly TV Land.
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38
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The movie is a work of ambivalence. Is English making fun of these women? Or is she making a pilot for Lifetime?
Read Full Review
33
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
The original was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.
Read Full Review
30
Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Ryan, barely refining her "When Harry Met Sally" persona, is a dud; Annette Bening, playing the best friend who sells her out to a tabloid, is better in the scenes she doesn't share with her.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Philip Kennicott
Falls flat at every turn.
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25
New York Post Lou Lumenick
A total disaster.
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25
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
It's not every movie that makes you wish Vin Diesel would run in and start blowing up stuff.
Read Full Review
25
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's a major dud.
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25
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
So consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start.
Read Full Review
25
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Is there anything more depressing than when middlebrow filmmakers decide to remake bona fide classics that did not, under any circumstances, need to be remade?
Read Full Review
20
Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams
The whole vibe is so shrill and frantic that the truly accomplished actresses, like Bening and Bergen, are left to flounder. The less nuanced ones -- that would be you, Debra Messing -- are, to use the idiom of the movie, as pleasant to watch as a bikini wax is to feel.
Read Full Review
20
Village Voice Ella Taylor
Isn't so much incompetent as it is hopelessly tame and muddled.
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20
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Is it an exaggeration to call The Women the worst movie of the year? Well, yeah, probably. But it may be the most disappointing, given all the effort that went into it.
Read Full Review
10
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The funniest thing about The Women is that Mick Jagger is one of the producers.
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10
The New York Times A.O. Scott
A witless, straining mess.
Read Full Review
0
Time Richard Schickel
One of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Read Full Review
0
Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
It's not particularly fun, or funny, for starters.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 2.8 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jennifer gave it a4:
If only I had read the reviews before seeing the movie. Debra, Meg, Annette, Jada, Candice Bergin, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Whitfield!!! How did all these women, successful actresses all sign up for this complete bomb. The trailer was way better than the movie and if you want to keep that feeling then don't see it. Should go straight to DVD. I'm sure it was intended but the movie came off silly and disjointed. It seemed to try so hard to be funny and at the same time tried to gather the best of all women filled shows and movies to make one great one but missed terribly. For example, Annette's character was very reminisent of Samantha Jones but not as good. There were a few heart warming moments provided by Mary's pre-teen daugther who seemed to be the only sensible, real character in the entire movie. Again, I understand it was suppose to be funny but it missed funny on the way to akward.

Chad S. gave it a3:
Mary Haines(Meg Ryan) is a good person. Just ask her; she'll tell you, like how she tells her roommate at a retreat for emotionally distraught women of privilege. For the record, Mary comes to the conclusion of her inherent goodness, because she recycles, and gives money to the homeless. Thankfully, Mary exercises discretion and stops short of mentioning that she's friends with a woman of color, who, not to toot her own horn, is also a lesbian. "The Women" needs Alex Fisher(Jada Pinkett-Smith); without her, Mary and her rich friends would be insufferable. Alex gives them depth. In this respect, "The Women" resembles the Republican National Convention whenever they trot out the occasional ethnically diverse speaker to make them look like an inclusionary party. By pure happenstance, though, which only proves there are no accidents, the film unwittingly reimagines these women if Alex wasn't part of their circle, when Mary snubs a Sachs' buyer's offer to launch her line of clothes in their flagship store. Maybe this self-described "good person" had second thoughts about having it all for the benefit of her daughter, who was last seen burning womanhood in effigy, by building a small bonfire with her tampons. This actually happens in "The Women". I'm not making it up. With some wishful thinking, the audience can theorize that Sylvia's resignation(Annette Benning) from her job as editor at a fashion magazine, is attributed to her seeing the harm that she inflicts, as a facilitator of glamour, on a kid such as Molly(India Ennenga), who has body image problems despite being on the thin side. She's just not supermodel-thin. If Mary's daughter hates her menstrual cycle that much, maybe Mary should be a good person, or more to the point, a good mother, and reconsider participation in an industry that encourages anorexia.

Cat gave it a1:
Only go if you're interested in seeing Bening's new facelift.

david` n gave it a5:
It was a great premise. Taking some great current talent and putting them in a comedy classic. Should have been rewritten by some gay men, or at least repeated word for word from the original.. If you haven't seen it, catch the original on dvd. It's timeless. How come the writers of Will and Grace weren't recruited for this one.

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