Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, Kate Upton, Don Johnson, Nicki Minaj.
First bimbos club?
Written by first time feature film writer Melissa Stack, The Other Woman initially seems like
another variation on The First Wives Club, but rather than three middleaged divorcees combining
forces to seek revenge on the husbands who dumped them for younger more attractive trophy
wives, this laboured and terribly dull comedy sees three women gang up on the one man who
played with their affections and betrayed them romantically.
Cameron Diaz, fresh from committing an unnatural sex act with a Ferrari in the awful The
Counsellor, plays Carly, a successful and strong corporate lawyer who has had a string of
boyfriends during her search for the elusive Mr Right. But she has one firm rule she won’t sleep
with a married man! Imagine her surprise then when she accidentally discovers that her latest
squeeze, the successful and handsome Mark (played by Games Of Thrones’ Nicholaj Coster
Waldau) is actually married to the demure and insecure Kate (Leslie Mann).
But after their first awkward meeting, Carly and Kate become friends, and over a few drinking and
bonding sessions they decide to get their revenge on the two timing Mark. At first Kate resorts to
such petty acts as slipping hormones into his drinks and lacing his shampoo with a hair removal
treatment. But when Carly and Kate follow him to the Hamptons one weekend they discover the
presence of yet another mistress in the voluptuous form of the beautiful, much younger and
spectacularly well endowed Amber (former Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton, from Tower
Heist, etc).
The three then team up to bring Mark down. That he is a bit of a bastard, an unrepentant
sleazebag and womaniser who is also embezzling funds from his own company makes him an
unsympathetic character, ripe for some payback. The big chance comes when the three women
discover where he is hiding his money and set out to strip him of his illgotten fortune. And here is
where the film becomes bogged down in a succession of cliched and clunky business that is
frankly not that funny or original.
The first rule of a comedy is that it should be funny and make us laugh. Unfortunately it’s a rule
that writer Stark, director Nick Cassavetes and the cast of this horribly laboured and dull comedy
seem to have forgotten. Cassavetes is the son of the legendary independent American filmmaker
the late John Cassavetes (Death Of A Chinese Bookie, etc), but he is better known for his dramas
that deal with serious themes, like The Notebook, one of those rare tearjerkers that blokes can
blubber at unashamedly as well. But with this raunchy comedy he is out of his depth and it shows
with his hamfisted and heavy handed approach to the subJudd Apatowlike adultoriented
comedy. Another Bridesmaids this female centric raunchy comedy certainly isn’t!
Lots of the film falls flat, and jokes just lie there dying, gasping for oxygen. I think I laughed only
once during the whole thing! And it drags on for far too long, outstaying its welcome. Compare this
dull 109 minutes of alleged comedy with the infectious and endlessly inventive humour that Wes
Anderson crams into a mere 100 minutes with his The Grand Budapest Hotel, easily the best
comedy released for quite some time.
Diaz seems to want it both ways she likes to find good, strong and confident roles for females on
screen, but she also plays sexually voracious creatures well. Here she spends much of the time in
skimpy outfits or in bikinis. Cassavetes previously worked with Diaz on the tearjerker drama My
Sister’s Keeper, drawing a much more nuanced and subtle performance from her then. Mann,
who has appeared in superior comedies like her husband’s Knocked Up, The 40YearOld Virgin,
etc, seems to be playing a stereotypical character that has become part of her repertoire. She has
a grating presence here as Kate, whose shrill voice and lack of self esteem becomes increasingly
grating as the film progresses. Upton looks good, but her performance is a bit too stiff and
wooden and onedimensional.
Coster-Waldau seems like a good sport as he suffers a lot of indignities in his role here. And Don
Johnson (of Miami Vice fame, etc) is wasted in a small and thankless role as Carly’s father.
★
