The Other Woman

Direction
Cinematography
Acting
Screenplay
Score
2.8

When high-powered lawyer Carly (Diaz) finds the perfect man; he’s good looking, smart and dripping in money, she thinks that she has hit the jackpot until she finds out he’s married. Turning up at his house and meeting his wife Kate (Mann) is awkward, but it also forces the women together in an effort to bring revenge on serial cheater Mark (Coster-Waldau). When they realise that he has been cheating on them with an even younger woman the skin and hair really starts flying, but everybody has their weakness and these women know Marks and they will make him pay.

Not exactly the most original of ideas, but let’s put that aside for now so we can talk about the positives here. Leslie Mann and Cameron Diaz bringing some decent laughs when it’s just the two of them on screen having the craic. Okay, now that’s out of the way let’s talk about the negatives; this may take a while.

This movie has no idea what it wants to be; it starts out as a buddy comedy when the women come together for some genuine laughs, but ultimately turns into a gross-out comedy that features laxatives and oestrogen pills. It is a shame that it choses to go down the gross-out road when it does because the twenty or so minutes it devotes to this element could easily be cut out for a more even delivery.

The performances aren’t bad as Mann brings her standard comedic routine and Diaz is the same old professional that we think is a heartless robot, but in reality is a decent skin. Upton fulfils her role as the ditsy good-looking younger woman, but she never really delivers anything of substance while Coster-Waldau does manage to convince that he’s the biggest tool of all time.

Not fully sure what comedy road it wants to be on and running twenty minutes longer than is necessary, The Other Woman fails to fully deliver.