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The Women
Metascore
27 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 32 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 32
  3. Negative: 20 out of 32
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    As a well-crafted, well-written and well-acted entertainment, it drew me in and got its job done.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    75
    It's intermittently amusing, and Bening actually gives a performance instead of a star turn, but the claws should have been sharper.
  3. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    63
    English wrangles her talent like a virtuoso. Best is Murphy Brown herself, Candice Bergen.
  4. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    63
    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.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Stephen Farber
    50
    The film repeatedly sacrifices dramatic punch for political correctness.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    50
    Very earnest, often engaging, but not quite as much of a pleasure as the original.
  7. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    50
    For all its current political incorrectness, the original film at least attacked hypocrisy; this one practises it.
  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    50
    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.
  9. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Paula Nechak
    50
    Feels the scratches of too much time and tinkling and is as disjointed as a dislocated shoulder.
  10. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    50
    It's fascinating trying to separate the thirties material from the mostly maladroit additions.
  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    40
    Becomes unfocused as it stumbles over all the points it wants to make.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    40
    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.
  13. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    38
    It's a high-powered cast, but it has painfully little to work with, apart from widely varying humor.
  14. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    38
    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.
  15. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    38
    The movie is a work of ambivalence. Is English making fun of these women? Or is she making a pilot for Lifetime?
  16. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Emily Rems
    38
    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.
  17. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    38
    This Women doesn't take place in reality or even in a glamorous urban fantasyland. It's strictly TV Land.
  18. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    33
    The original was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.
  19. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Philip Kennicott
    30
    Falls flat at every turn.
  20. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrea Gronvall
    30
    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.
  21. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    25
    It's a major dud.
  22. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    25
    It's not every movie that makes you wish Vin Diesel would run in and start blowing up stuff.
  23. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    25
    A total disaster.
  24. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    25
    So consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start.
  25. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: M. E. Russell
    25
    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?
  26. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    20
    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.
  27. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Mary Elizabeth Williams
    20
    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.
  28. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    20
    Isn't so much incompetent as it is hopelessly tame and muddled.
  29. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    10
    A witless, straining mess.
  30. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    10
    The funniest thing about The Women is that Mick Jagger is one of the producers.
  31. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    0
    It's not particularly fun, or funny, for starters.
  32. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    0
    One of the worst movies I've ever seen.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
4.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 23 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 13
  3. Negative: 7 out of 13
  1. TomG
    1
    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.… Full Review »
  2. Antony
    3
    How can there be so many talented actresses partake in such awful nonsense is beyond me. This was a terrible movie and thirty minutes into it I had no other decision but to turn it off. I tried watching it again to finish the movie but 'The Women' was unwatchable. There was no chemistry between the actresses. For instance, Meg Ryan's character Mary Haines would be furious if she saw the hussy who was sleeping with her husband at the lingerie store where she shops at. What should have been the scene of the movie turned out to be a complete dud as Meg Ryan and Evan Mendes were awkward in their dialogue with one another insulting one another. I liked Debra Messing in Ned & Stacey, The Starter Wife and Will & Grace but this was truly terrible. Take a pass on this one.… Full Review »
  3. KendraS.
    8
    Fun to watch with women.
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