Director: Nick Cassavetes
Rating: 12A
Release: 23 April
It’s a chick flick formula we know all too well – man cheats on wife, wife seeks revenge, chaos follows. It’s almost tired. So how does The Other Woman pull it off?
Cameron Diaz’s power-dressing lawyer character Carly is totally loved up with her suave boyfriend Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) – that is until she discovers he’s married. Carly wipes her hands clean of the cheat and writes it off as another bad experience – until Mark’s wife Kate turns up on her doorstep demanding answers.
Somehow, the two women become unlikely friends – tough talking Carly takes meek and mild Kate join forces g as they go on a mission to find out if Mark has any other women on the go (enter megababe Kate Upton as 20-something Amber), declare war on him with a series of pranks and try to find out what else the online investor has hidden up his sleeve – forming a pretty unconventional friendship as they go. Girl power etc.
Like Bridesmaids before it, The Other Woman is a film which declares it’s about female friendships, not about man-hating, but 95% of the movie is spent fretting over love rat Mark, stalking him, torturing him and plotting his demise. Maybe not the feminist message that the writers were hoping for.
Cameron Diaz is the big name here, but it’s This Is 40 star Leslie Mann who steals the show as spurned wife Kate. She’s a floral dress-wearing, doting wife whose whole world collapses when she find out Mark is doing the dirty – with really funny results. Mann has impeccable comic timing and manages to steal a scene with a simple simpering look.
The gags are obvious, Diaz plays her usual character and it’s pretty predictable from the offset. But despite all of that – it’s not the worst romcom of the year. For all the formula’s a little tired, and the pro-women message misses the mark slightly, it’s fairly harmless. With laugh out loud moments scattered throughout, and even a bit of heart beneath the scatty exterior, The Other Woman won’t be bagging any awards, but if you’re after something fun and fluffy, this is the one for you.
[rating=3]
