THE OTHER WOMAN (6 out of 10) – Directed by Nick Cassavetes, written by Melissa Stack, starring Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Don Johnson, Taylor Kinney, Nicki Minaj; rated PG-13 (mature thematic material, sexual references and language); in general release; running time: 109 minutes.
(Minor spoiler and content warning: dog poop) About a half hour into “The Other Woman,” a giant Great Dane belonging to Kate King (Leslie Mann) squats in Carly Whitten’s (Cameron Diaz) posh upscale New York apartment and pinches a giant loaf on the immaculate hardwood floors. We as the audience are treated to all of it in graphic detail. “Should I clean that up?” Mann asks. “I’ll clean that up.”
I can think of no more apt metaphor for this film, which aims to be a female-empowerment revenge caper, but somehow ends up hollow and feeling condescending. Director Nick Cassavetes, whose previous films include female kryptonite “The Notebook,” bears much of the blame, especially in his treatment of his three female leads.
First is Carly Whitten (Diaz), a smart, accomplished attorney at a high class lawfirm in New York. She thinks she’s met the perfect guy, until she tries to surprise him by showing up at his house and meets his wife.
Leslie Mann plays Kate King, the somewhat addle-brained and flighty wife who has actually been giving her venture capitalist husband all of his best ideas through the years. (See? She’s smart, even though she says things about needing to go to “brain camp.”) She figures out who Carly is and confronts her at her law offices to demand to know if she is having an affair with her husband.
And they both go get drunk and somehow suddenly end up besties. Ok, not quite so fast, but almost, And it involves lots of cliches.
While Diaz and Mann make a great comedy odd couple (and it’s great to see Mann get to play the fun character, far against the type she played in her husband Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up” and “This is 40” as the frustrated, disapproving housewife to Paul Rudd’s idiot man-child), these are kind of broad strokes that these characters are painted with.
“I’m the uptight businesswoman with no time for nonsense.” “And I’m the crazy free radical best friend you never knew you had!” This is kind of the same vibe you get from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in “Baby Mama” but not quite as quirky. It’s also the classic comedy odd couple of the funny one and the straight man. I kind of wish these characters felt more fleshed out and weren’t just classic tropes.
But, Diaz and Mann have some chemistry and share a few good scenes of madcap adventures. This is the only thing that saves this movie from being a total trainwreck is that the leads are actually quite good and the script has a few legitimately funny laughs in it.
However, the worst affront comes when they discover they’re both being cheated on with yet another woman, this time it’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kate Upton. And I can think of two reasons guys will want to see this movie.
It’s a joke about the sexist portrayal of Kate Upton’s boobs. Funny, right? No, it’s not. And neither are long, lingering, slow motion shots of her running on a beach in a string bikini centered on her chest. Seriously, this is the worst since Baywatch, which you could give some credit towards because they knew exactly what they were doing.
For this? There is no excuse. Just look at this promotional material put out to advertise for the movie:
*Sigh*
So, stereotypical characters of a) the bitch, b) the dingbat, c) the sexpot. Very empowering for females. Yay, chick flick! Regardless of how much revenge they seek on the man who lied to them, I’m not feeling overly forgiving towards these ridiculously broad portrayals of characters who deserve to be more than just two-dimensional archetypes.
On the upside, for all the ladies looking to take some revenge on Jaime Lannister after last week’s rape-tastic “Game of Thrones” (I do hope you realize “rape-tastic” is both meant ironically and not a real word because, um, like there’s no positive side of rape? Do I need to say this? It feels like I have to say this), you might enjoy this. “Dear the writers and editors of Jezebel and every angry rant I read online, do I have a movie for you. . . .”
Oh, yeah, did we mention that the cheating man in this movie is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau? Well it is, and he’s just as much of a suave douchebag in this as he is in “Game of Thrones,” so rejoice!
The ways they construct to torture him are a little bit funny. . . depending on how funny you think man boobs and diarrhea are. Frankly, the humor seems a little more “13 year old boy” and less “mature, confident woman.” Certainly ladies can find explosive poo jokes funny, but, when “Bridesmaids” did it first and “Bridesmaids” did it better, you might want to not try to mine that for any more funneh.
But again, you must suspend a great amount of disbelief to buy the final revenge scenario. And while it might be fun, it feels like they, our three protagonistas, deserve a better, more plausible ending.
It also starts to feel really long in the middle act. This is never a good sign in a comedy, especially one that only clocks in under two hours. But it felt like they could’ve trimmed more to move this along faster.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the cliche, paint-by-numbers, astoundingly predictable ending telling us what the three ladies went on to do is just appallingly bad. Ok, maybe just Kate Upton’s ending. As trite and predictable as they were, I kind of liked Diaz’s and Mann’s endings. (Awww, I’m such a sap.)
The final strike against this movie is the most inexplicable stunt casting ever of Nikki Minaj as Carly’s sassy executive assistant. Starships were meant to fly, and Nikki Minaj was not meant to act.
For your entertainment dollar this weekend, skip “The Other Woman” and go see “Captain America 2” again. Save this for when it comes out on Redbox or Netflix Instant and your real life bestie just found out her signficant other is cheating on her. Bring this and some ice cream and watch then. But, really, the ice cream will be better. Because ice cream rules.
Final rating: 6 out of 10