The Other Woman is a movie of montages, music and quite a few well-placed punchlines as it’s not exactly a home run comedy, but it’s a solid double. Directed by Nick Cassavetes with a screenplay by relative newcomer, Melissa Stack, the film makes good use of its female leads and situations to find comedy in the emotional hurt caused by a cheating husband (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as his wife (Leslie Mann) ends up teaming with two of his mistresses (Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton) for revenge.
If The Other Woman lacks anything it’s an editor with any kind of confidence, believing what they have here is actually funny. Not only does the film open with a montage, but it’s overloaded with them and when it’s not a montage, it’s one song after another, several of which having nothing to do with what’s going on.
In fact, the music is a curious addition as about halfway through I’d heard a couple songs I really quite enjoyed, but as soon as I started paying closer attention I began to realize about two-thirds of the movie is songs laid over useless inserts, extending the film’s running time. Needless, considering this isn’t a film that’s suffering to keep the audience entertained.
The narrative gets going as Carly (Diaz) attempts to make up with her current boyfriend only to be greeted at the front door by his wife, Kate (Mann). Lonely and hurt, Kate has no one to turn to she can trust and ultimately comes knocking on Carly’s door, igniting an unlikely friendship.
Tough love, and a night of alcohol and braiding each other’s hair, leads to clandestine spying on Kate’s husband and the not-at-all-surprising inclusion of Upton running along the beach in a white bikini as the third mistress, completing a triangle of revenge. Throw “Chicago Fire’s” Taylor Kinney in the mix, Don Johnson as Diaz’s horny father and you’re likely to see where most of this is going, but Stack has a knack (rhymes!) for punchlines, even if some of the scenes feel as if they were included just because they were funny and not because they necessarily fit the moment.
The worst inclusion is rapper Nicki Minaj as Carly’s personal secretary. Minaj is not an actress and she proves that from the first minute she’s on screen, herself alone weighing down the film’s opening act to the point I thought we might be in for a trainwreck. Fortunately her contributions are limited after the first 15 minutes or so.
One of the most curious aspects is this is directed by Nick Cassavetes whose track record as an actor and director is all over the board. From playing the coked out crazy man in John Woo‘s Face/Off to directing The Notebook and then Alpha Dog, this guy is hardly predictable. I can only imagine Stack’s screenplay drew him to The Other Woman as he seems to have wanted to fit in as many of her jokes as possible, but he at least landed himself a romantic comedy that rises above the typical scenario involving weak female characters ultimately bending toward the will of the men in their lives, while managing to be funny at the same time.
The comedy in the feature ultimately outweighs the negative, making for a rather fun movie. Mann’s attempts to “cry on the inside like a winner” and when she says she has to get her “ducks in a row” through clenched tears had me more than laughing quietly to myself. We’re not talking about a comedic stunner here, but we’re talking about an above average romantic comedy laugher that will certainly satisfy the target audience and should prove entertaining for any significant others accompanying them out of sheer kindness.
