-September 12, 2008-
Murphy Brown creator Diane English reworks Clare Boothe Luce's vintage bitchfest for the SEX AND THE CITY generation. On the plus side, it's nothing but featured roles for women of every age. One the minus side, they're all backbiting schemers who do nothing but talk about men... plus ca change! Watch Trailer


The Women Details>>

Year: 2008
Rated PG-13
Parental Rating: Cautionary; some scenes objectionable
Country Of Origin: U.S.
Running Time: 0
Format: Color
Genre(s): Comedy
Production Co(s).: Double Edge Entertainment; Inferno Productions; Jagged Films; Shukovsky English Entertainment
Released By: Picturehouse
Cast
Meg Ryan: Mary Haines
Annette Bening: Sylvie Fowler
Eva Mendes: Crystal Allen
Debra Messing: Edie Cohen
Jada Pinkett Smith: Alex Fisher
Bette Midler: Flora DeLave
Candice Bergen: Mary's Mother
Carrie Fisher: Nancy Blake
Cloris Leachman: Maggie
Debi Mazar: Tanya
India Ennenga: Molly Haines
Jill Flint: Annie
Ana Gasteyer: Pat
Joanna Gleason: Barbara
Tilly Scott Pedersen: Uta
Lynn Whitfield: Glenda Hill
Natasha Alam: Natasha
Emily Seymour: April Cohen
Allison Seymour: April Cohen
Lauren Lefebvre: May Cohen
Lindsay Lefebvre: May Cohen
Isabella Panteledes: June Cohen
Olivia Panteledes: June Cohen
Madaleine Black: January Cohen
Meredith Black: January Cohen
Jana Robbins: Lingerie Sales Woman
Maya Ri Sanchez: Dora
Ruby Hondros: Jimmy Choo Wearer
Nicole Robinson: Make-Over Lady
Danielle Perry: Salon Assistant
Lindsay Flathers: Taylor
Christy Scott Cashman: Jean
Celeste Olivia: Gilda
Denece Ryland: Cory
Allyssa Maurice: Sweet Woman
Jordan Schechter: Ashley
Marina Re: Helene
Stephanie Clayman: Admissions Nurse
Maria Elena Ramirez: OB/GYN
Pamela Lambert: Scrub Nurse
Ellen Withrow: Nurse at Recovery Hotel

Credits
Diane English: Director
Diane English: Writer - based on the screenplay of the 1939 motion picture written by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, and play by Clare Boothe Luce
Anita Loos: Source
Clare Boothe Luce: Source
Jane Murfin: Source
Diane English: Producer
Mick Jagger: Producer
Bill Johnson: Producer
Victoria Pearman: Producer
Bob Berney: Exec. Producer
Caroline Blackwood: Exec. Producer
Jim Seibel: Exec. Producer
Bobby Sheng: Exec. Producer
Joel Shukovsky: Exec. Producer
James W. Skotchdopole: Exec. Producer
Taline Khojikian: Assoc. Producer
Mark Mascolo: Assoc. Producer
Anastas Michos: Cinematographer
Tia Nolan: Editor
Mark Isham: Musical Composer
Jane Musky: Production Designer
Mario Ventenilla: Art Director
Debbie Cutler: Set Decorator
John Dunn: Costumes
Cathy Sandrich Gelfond: Casting
Amanda Mackey: Casting
Mark Dornfeld: Special Effects
Shaina Holmes: Special Effects - digital
Paulina Kuszta: Special Effects
Tom Williams: Sound - mixer
Julie Hewett: Make Up
Melanie Hughes Weaver: Make Up


Trailer>>

Full Review>>
How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways… Diane English's long-gestating remake of Clare Boothe Luce's 1936 bitchfest is so consistently, outrageously wrongheaded in every way it's hard to know where to start, but the fact that it turns a viciously knowing satire of privileged female misbehavior into a "you go girl!" knockoff of the SEX AND THE CITY movie (2008) is as good a place as any.

Luce's play revolves around the gossipy, backbiting friendships that bind a group of financially privileged women and, to put not too fine a point on it, ripped them to haute couture shreds. It's often dismissed as misogynistic and old fashioned, but Luce herself always insisted she wasn't out to paint women overall as shallow, conniving, man-obsessed gold diggers of varying degrees of sophistication -- just society women with too much money and time on their hands to bother cultivating anything but their jewelry collections. In English's vaguely feminist telling, Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) is the perfect modern superwoman: She keeps a lovely Connecticut home for her husband, Wall Street wolf Steven; is a caring -- if oblivious -- mother to her confused 11-year-old daughter, Molly (India Ennenga); and designs clothes for her father's firm. But to Mary's shock and dismay, a chatty Saks Fifth Avenue manicurist (Debi Mazar) lets slip that her BFF, perfume spritzer Crystal Allen (Eva Mendez, who's no Joan Crawford), is having an affair with a rich man named, yes, Steven Haines. For advice and emotional support, Mary turns to her best girlfriends: vaguely artsy Earth mother Edie Cohen (Debra Messing); fashion-magazine editrix Sylvie Fowler (Annette Bening, who's no Rosalind Russell), who, unbeknownst to the gal-pack, is hanging onto her high-powered job by her perfectly manicured nails; sassy lesbian essayist Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith), who's dating a very angry supermodel, assiduously not working on her new book and adds two tokens in one to the otherwise blandly Anglo-hetero mix. They all tell her to dump Steven's cheating ass: This is the 21st century, for Goddess' sake! Mary also solicits the opinions of her no-nonsense housekeeper (Cloris Leachman), Molly's fresh-faced Danish nanny (Tilly Scott Pedersen), the tough-talking Hollywood agent (Bette Midler) she meets at an exclusive yoga retreat, and her own pragmatic mother (Candice Bergen), who supplies the film's only genuinely biting lines and suggests that Mary step back and look at the big picture before acting rashly.

George Cukor directed the first film version of The Women in 1939 from a screenplay by Jane Murfin and the famously sharp-tongued Anita Loos, of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDS fame, and the result set a very high bar. But the much-derided musical remake, THE OPPOSITE SEX (1956), looks like laser-cut brilliance next to English's bland, tin-eared reimagining, which manages to suggest both that women have come a long way, baby, and that they need to look to their pubescent daughters for personal validation. Not only is that not progressive, but it's also not funny. --Maitland McDonagh

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