Al's Omniflick: The Other Woman

Sunday, April 27, 2014

The Other Woman

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Nick Cassavetes, Starring: Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Don Johnson, Kate Upton and Nicki Minaj

I had just come from seeing John Turturro's incoherent, parody of a movie, Fading Gigolo and thought my day couldn't get worse. My hopes were premature.

I've never been a fan of Nick Cassvetes work. His films (for me) are either mediocre or embarrassing or both. The Other Woman is a new low in his career; an excruciatingly unfunny, viscerally stupid, IQ-corrosive that never seems to end.

Working from a script by first time screen-scribe Melissa Stack, The Other Woman tells the story of three women who all learn they have been had by the same man. Kate King (Leslie Mann), is the woman married to a jerk; Mark (played by Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) who romances a woman Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz), never telling her of his marriage. The two women discover his duplicity then bond, forming an awkward friendship. But it isn't long before they discover Kate's husband is romancing yet another woman; a blonde bomshell named Amber (Kate Upton). Kate and Carly bring Amber into their fold by announcing she too is yet another victim. The three women then hatch a series of schemes to avenge themselves and also to bring Mark's shady financial dealings to light.

I usually find Cameron Diaz the most annoying presence in any film but what does it say about a movie when she is the most charming person in it? Leslie Mann aquits herself well in her husband Judd Apatow's films but is less interesting with other's material. Here she is so ear-splittingly shrill, one wonders how she charmed her husband to the altar. The series of slapsticky scenes where she is falling all over Diaz are something of musty, Laverne and Shirley comedy bits that weren't amusing then either. Kate Upton brings absolutely nothing to the table in terms of comedic timing or physical comedy. Her performance is hopelessly bland but then again, she has little to work with. She's supposed to be the beauty all women despise and fear but she radiates little heat or magnetism. And Nicky Minaj is a puzzling casting choice. Other than her current popularity, I wondered what got into Cassavetes' head to cast her as Carly's administrative assistant. Her voice is so grating, I was reminded of a creaky door hinge whenever she opened her mouth. Cassavetes also seemed to enjoy accentuating Minaj's ample posterior. Maybe he found it more expressive than her acting.

Nothing in the plot to ruin Mark is all that clever or funny; laxative in a drink, estrogen in Mark's morning smoothie, and hair-removal gel in his shampoo. Where is the dark, vengeful, hell-hath-no-fury, female psyche with its cunning menace, personified as Linda Fiorentino's nether-siren in The Last Seduction or the legions of noir femme-fatales of yore? Surely a little dark humor wouldn't hurt a comedy.

I try to resist the silly hyperbolizing moviegoers are susceptible to when they love or hate a movie but it's difficult to refrain from it myself after seeing something like The Other Woman. To call the movie garbage might be exaggeration better left to others so I'll resort to euphemism by calling it unrecyclable, noxious, waste material.

And leave it at that.

No comments:

Post a Comment

On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.