Why, oh why, doesn't anyone ever listen to Samuel Goldwyn? Don't remake your GOOD movies, the legendary producer said, remake your bad ones until you get it right. There was absolutely no need for Diane English to run George Cukor's very entertaining and smart 1939 version of Claire Boothe Luce's hit play, a very watchable cat- and chatfest that provided definitive roles for Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford, through the mill again--in fact, the original's central gimmick of not showing husbands, fathers, sons or any other men, which worked in the original because it made no bones about embracing its essential theatricality, comes off here not only as hugely forced but also as astonishingly creepy. I mean, where DID all the guys on the streets and in the stores go, anyway? Did UFOs suck them up? Small wonder that when the movie's solitary male DOES appear, I was briefly but genuinely worried for his safety. It could be argued that English succeeds equally in making men disappear not only from the screen but the theater as well (one of the four who were in the theater with me walked out halfway through, and who knows how desperately the others, who were there with spouses or dates, WANTED to), but movies like this commit the crime of rendering GOOD so-called "chick flicks" (In Her Shoes, The Devil Wears Prada, Sex and the City, Mamma Mia! and even much of Tyler Perry's work) inaccessible to most men who, having sat through this, would opt to endure testicular surgery without benefit of anaesthetic rather than attend another. Worse still is her unerring knack for turning a lot of wonderful actresses' chief strengths completely against them: playing a woman with a straying husband, Meg Ryan's genuine cuteness comes across as unbearably saccharine; Annette Bening's normally amusing tartness is whiny and annoying; Cloris Leachman's usual salt-of-the-earth wisdom here is merely dowdy--English can't even get a good performance out of Candice Bergen, whose career English permanently redefined in Murphy Brown, for God's sake! (The performer who comes off the worst by far, though, is the normally charming Jada Pinkett Smith. She plays a lesbian, which is easy to tell because she wears tight power suits and looks prenaturally pissed off most of the time. Since she's the only gay character, and virtually the only African-American in the movie, I hope some Picturehouse Pictures hack didn't, upon reading English's script, exclaim, "Oh, good! Two birds with one stone!" If anything positive can be said for English's The Women, it can be that it disproves Michael Medved's apparent critical philosophy that one can (or should) only like movies whose politics or beliefs one agrees with (you can, after all, donate thousands to the ACLU and STILL love Dirty Harry); not since last year's anti-Iraq War snoozefest Lions for Lambs has a movie so thoroughly bungled its seemingly unassailable premise (that women are beautiful just the way they are, and shouldn't starve themselves into malnutrition to fit the media's unhealthy and near-impossible standards) --it sends so many mixed messages as to make The House Bunny look like Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique. But let's put things in perspective: TIME magazine critic Richard Schickel proclaimed English's The Women one of the worst movies ever made--oh, come on, Dick, when lined up against Caligula, Myra Breckinridge, all snuff films, most torture movies and the Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter, this comes nowhere near. It's merely the worst film of 2008.… Expand

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.

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.… Expand

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.… Expand

Great cast, some great scenes, some great lines, some laughs. Not a great movie, but certainly not the worst I've ever seen.

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.

Fun to watch with women.

I cannot beleive with some of the names in this movie what horrible performances were given. I was very dissapointed.

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.

Only go if you're interested in seeing Bening's new facelift.

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.