Metascore

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 16 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 9 Ratings

  • Summary: Emilia is a Harvard law school graduate and a newlywed, having just married Jack, a high-powered New York lawyer, who was her boss – and married – when she began working at his law firm. Unfortunately, her life takes an unexpected turn when Jack and Emilia lose their newborn daughter. Emiliailia struggles through her grief to connect with her new stepson William, but is finding it hard to connect with this precocious child. Perhaps the most difficult obstacle of all for Emilia is trying to cope with the constant interferences of her husband’s angry, jealous ex-wife, Carolyn. (IFC Films) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 16
  2. Negative: 4 out of 16
  1. Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    Feb 4, 2011
    63
    The Other Woman isn't a perfect film, but it makes better use of her (Portman) talents than her other current movie, "No Strings Attached."
  2. Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Feb 4, 2011
    60
    The one person who does appreciate Emilia is Portman - which is what saves The Other Woman from the easy judgment toward which it so often appears to be edging.
  3. Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    Feb 5, 2011
    60
    The Other Woman earns a viewer's respect for the grace notes that director-screenwriter Don Roos finds beneath these familiar tunes, for the unassertive skill with which he paints upper-class life on the Upper East Side, and for the rightness of the performances.
  4. Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    Feb 3, 2011
    30
    This soapy drama manages to be both half-baked and overcooked.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 2 out of 3
  1. I know one very similar to this movie and much better too, called "Stepmom" with Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris. The truth is that this drama (call it the novel would be too absurd) can have the most unsympathetic characters possible. Natalie Portman strives to give credibility to Emily, but the abuse of recurring return to the premature death of the daughter is the actress crippling any attempt to make her character more three-dimensional! Nevertheless, it is the best on the scene because her husband apparently indifferent and soothing, the conflicted ex-wife and the son verbally aggressive and nasty drawback is sufficient reason to abandon that Emily left the life in the midst of that family. It's a tearjerker poorly done and most obvious example of this is the final 30 minutes to extend into dialogue with another party of Emily solving not only the loose ends of the film as a whole, but of her life, as if only a simple conversation could unlock and enter the core of the personality and feelings. Expand
  2. Natalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow give fantastic performances, but sadly they are featured in a terrible dramatically uneven awkward film that won't get them noticed anytime soon. I give this film 28%. Collapse
  3. Ridiculously over-dramatic, almost to the point of being the 21st century's "Mommy Dearest". Stepmom would be a very slight step better than this one. Expand

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