"The Women": A DVD Movie Review

I really looked forward to seeing the movie entitled "The Women." The cast was first class. It included Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Eva Mendes, Carrie Fisher, Cloris Leachman, and Debi Mazur.

As if the cast didn't provide enough star power, writer/director, Diane English, is also a favorite of many. With all of that going for it, this movie should have been a sure-fire hit. Unfortunately, it was not!

The movie centers on Mary Haines (Ryan); a woman who is convinced all is well in her world. She thinks she is happily married, with a circle of friends that adore her. She is at least partially right.

While friends Sylvia (Bening), Edie (Messing, and Alex (Pinkett Smith) do love her, it turns out that her husband actually loves someone else. His mistress, Crystal (Mendes), is a perfume counter girl at the local upscale department store. She has no class, no scruples, and very little intelligence; a potentially lethal combination for a torrid affair.

When Sylvia accidentally finds out about Mary's cheating spouse's affair from her manicurist (Mazur), she urges her friend to confront the woman. Mary does just that when the two end up in the same lingerie department. But Mendes isn't swayed by Mary's plea to leave her husband alone.

Things become even more complicated when Sylvia betrays Mary's confidence and spills the beans about the affair to a reporter. With everything falling down around her, Mary decides it is time to rethink both her life and her career. Something that becomes inevitable after her father fires her from his clothing design firm.

As one might guess, the heroine ultimately recreates herself and builds a new life that turns out to be far superior to her old one. She sticks it her father as well as her husband by designing a memorable fashion collection and gets her own career at last.

Certainly, the subject matter was certainly timely. The story is just a different version of an age old one that occurs almost every year to hundreds of women around the world.