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9
17
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53
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66
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45
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61
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43
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66
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29
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23
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80
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61
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39
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30
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34
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60
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32
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27
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41
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39
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46
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73
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78
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55
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66
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69
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58
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47
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66
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34
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33
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54
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67
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51
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42
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28
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63
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86
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35
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48
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30
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53
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24
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83
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33
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45
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55
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47
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96
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35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
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88
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71
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67
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28
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73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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96
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56
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72
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xx
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73
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76
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86
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13
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70
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71
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51
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76
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26
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57
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45
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81
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45
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xx
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65
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75
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67
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71
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70
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24
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85
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Endgame
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56
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62
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74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
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50
Fuel
25
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50
Give Me Your Hand
58
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72
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89
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52
Grace
64
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81
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xx
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63
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73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
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29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop![]()
61
Intimate Enemies
42
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70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
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41
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41
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66
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34
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80
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83
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xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
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47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
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Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
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79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
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77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
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46
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39
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89
Still Walking![]()
50
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55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
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61
Trucker
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83
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66
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66
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70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
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xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Women, The

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 32 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 20 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
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
DVD: December 16, 2008
Running Time: 114 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
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)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
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 >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 >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
English wrangles her talent like a virtuoso. Best is Murphy Brown herself, Candice Bergen.
Read Full Review >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 >San Francisco Chronicle David Wiegand
Very earnest, often engaging, but not quite as much of a pleasure as the original.
Read Full Review >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 >New York Magazine David Edelstein
It's fascinating trying to separate the thirties material from the mostly maladroit additions.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
The film repeatedly sacrifices dramatic punch for political correctness.
Read Full Review >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 >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 >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Becomes unfocused as it stumbles over all the points it wants to make.
Read Full Review >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 >Chicago Tribune Tasha Robinson
It's a high-powered cast, but it has painfully little to work with, apart from widely varying humor.
Read Full Review >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 >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.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This Women doesn't take place in reality or even in a glamorous urban fantasyland. It's strictly TV Land.
Read Full Review >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 >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 >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 >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 >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
So consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start.
Read Full Review >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 >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 >Village Voice Ella Taylor
Isn't so much incompetent as it is hopelessly tame and muddled.
Read Full Review >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 >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The funniest thing about The Women is that Mick Jagger is one of the producers.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
It's not particularly fun, or funny, for starters.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 3.7 (out of 10) based on 20 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Tom G gave it a1:
A poor film. I realize the omission of any male cast was a deliberate stylistic decision, but it becomes conspicuously obvious and ostentatiously overt when they're walking down the street and there isn't even a single male extra walking along a public sidewalk. So much so that I have no idea what they were even talking about, as I was too focused on the absence of 50% of the population. They might well have blared THX-style "THERE ARE NO MEN IN THIS FILM!" Regardless, this must be the ultimate chick flick, since there are only chicks and only the chick point of view, which makes it inherently unbalanced. I was under the impression this was supposed to be a comedy film, but I kept waiting and waiting for the funny, but it never came. So I figured it must be a drama, but then what person really wants to see a bunch of privileged upper-upper-middle class women whining about their petty little lives. Was I supposed to like any of them or be sympathetic to them? Because they were all inherently unlikeable. Not to mention making themselves completely powerless. Meg Ryan goes in with the notion of kicking Eva Mendes' ass, and I thought, cool, it'll get interesting, but instead she just has a whine. I mean, jeez. This is your idea of kicking ass? In any event, it makes me glad that I'm gay, since if there is even a modicum of reality in this dreck, I am so thrilled that I dodged a bullet and will never have to put up with the sort of mindless crap shown in this film. Feminist? I guess so. Poor movies shouldn't be confined to just male-oriented ones. FAILure should always be an equal-opportunity phenomenon. DO. NOT. WANT.
Kendra S. gave it an8:
Fun to watch with women.
Lauren s gave it a3:
It's like watching grass grow. You're watching your own pathetic life being turned into a movie with these women who love to chat with each other about men and relationships.
Ian A. gave it an8:
I really don't think this movie deserved the bad ratings that it received. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fast paced and funny. I'm a die hard fan of the 1939 version but I really liked this modern day version and would thoroughly recommend it.
Jessyka T. gave it a1:
I cannot beleive with some of the names in this movie what horrible performances were given. I was very dissapointed.
Jim L. gave it a6:
Great cast, some great scenes, some great lines, some laughs. Not a great movie, but certainly not the worst I've ever seen.
Jay H. gave it a6:
To remake such a classic as The Women (1939) is not a good idea. You could never ever equal the cast of the original. It's not as bad though as the reviews I have been reading, the basic story is good and hard to mess up. But, it is so pale in comparison to the original. Annette Bening is good, as is Cloris Leachman. I did enjoy most of it, but it compelled me to watch the original.
