This is it. The empowering film depicting quirky, well-constructed female characters who unite in an attempt to deal out much-deserved revenge on a serial cheater that audiences have been waiting for. Or so you hoped. What had so much promise and had been backed by power players Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann may leave you slightly disappointed. Promising to be the quintessential gal pal flick, The Other Woman charts Carly Whitten’s (Diaz) discovery that her boyfriend, the man she has been led to believe was single, is in fact married and holds another mistress.
After an unexpected run-in with her boyfriend’s wife, the zany and a little too emotionally attached Kate (Mann), the two team up with the other buxom blonde mistress, Amber, (Upton) to serve up cheating, three- timing husband Mark (Nikolaj Coster- Waldau) his just desserts. Clocking in as Carly’s best friend is American rapper Nicki Minaj, who is one of the more redeemable features of the film, putting in a surprisingly hilarious performance.
What should be a triumph for generations of women seems to have been half-heartedly constructed, despite enthusiasm from Diaz and co. The partnership between Mann and Diaz is actually rather dynamic, and perhaps given a different film, they could truly be able to shine on screen as a power-house pair of comedy queens. However, whilst Upton is not at fault for her performance as Amber, the construction of the character itself is rather disheartening, in the sense that she seems to be purely superficial and without depth, despite the obvious attempts at being self- mocking. With the trio having failed to latch onto a film with enough substance for their brilliant personalities, The Other Woman seems to follow a rather formulaic pattern, settling for a few cheap laughs instead of driving home the comedy, which just brings the whole production down to a disappointing level, given the amount of potential there was for a new female comedy film to match that of Bridesmaids.
What seemed to be a step up from the usual mind-numbing chick flicks, The Other Woman seems to have settled for second best and follows an unimaginative formula, which effectively squeezes most of the life out of the film. Despite strong performances from its cast and a general best effort to make things seem better than they really are, it seems to have fallen victim to the very thing it aimed to combat, stereotypical representations of genders.
Reviewed by Mel.
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