Meg Ryan needs a better hairdresser

The Women

Wow, my blogging backlog has become huge now. Considering that I spend at least half an hour writing these postings (though there is a great variation in that, sometimes it’s more like 10 minutes, sometimes it’s as much as over an hour), it’s like having two hours of work backlogged! Well, this is not truly work, so I shouldn’t perceive it that way. And it is more relaxing than e-mails, of which I also have a significant number backlogged.

The backlog all started with “The Women”, because after watching the film, I felt an incredibly strong desire to, well, see other films. To some degree, “The Women” was the perfect appetizer. It was good but not too good, and the film left so much to desire. I am determined not to enter the typical bashing of the film, usually performed by people who saw the original 1939 film and cannot stop complaining about how much inferior this version is. Certainly it is, but that’s not all. It’s been a little while since I saw the 1939 version, so I feel confident that I am now able to see this version for itself.

On Imdb, the only person who does not compare the film to the original has a complaint about something valid: The moral of the story seems to be “Do whatever you like, don’t care about others and everybody will love you”. That is pretty much exactly what’s happening in the film, and it annoyed that person just as well as me. Bottom line: It’s not a particularly great film and has some major weaknesses -aforementioned questionable morals, an unbearable clothing style (are the women in the story all 50 or what?) and this amazingly painful scene which must take place in every chick flick nowadays: the two main characters’ tearful girl friendship reunion. Nevertheless, the movie is much better than your average chick flick. The story is engaging, the actors are all pretty good (except for that damn daughter) and most of it is actually quite funny! I think there are two types of chick flicks: Those with romance and those with girl friendships (such as Sex and the City). For a girl friendship chick flick like this, it’s quite an accomplishment when I am not trying to bang my head against a wall.

I actually thought Eva Mendes is quite well cast for the film. Certainly she is no Joan Crawford but her apparent sex appeal compared to the main character was made pretty obvious. Sadly Meg Ryan was totally no match against her in their confrontation, but she had her own nice transformation, which I enjoyed. One of the smartest scenes in the film was the one in which Meg Ryan’s character talks to her mother. There was a scene like that in the original film, but I don’t recall it making such an impact. The way she described how betrayal feels was something quite unexpected, it was the big moment of ‘truth’ of the film.

Ultimately, I watched the film because I am a fan of the 1939 version of “The Women”, the truly memorable version. But it wasn’t all that bad and, in my opinion, doesn’t deserve the bad reviews. After all, the film was quite a box office success, and I feel critics and complainers just cannot appreciate good entertainment sometimes.