'The Women' review

Meg Ryan and Annette Bening in "The Women" (Credit: Claudette Barius/Picturehouse)

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During a routine manicure, Sylvie Fowler (Annette Bening) learns that the husband of her best friend Mary (Meg Ryan) is having an affair with perfume counter girl Crystal (Eva Mendes). It’s not long before mutual friends Edie (Debra Messing) and Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith) are in on the secret too. And once Mary finds out, the revelation jeopardizes both her marriage and her friendship with Sylvie.

Big question: Can this update of a classic 1936 play and 1939 movie connect with contemporary audiences in the age of “Sex and the City”?

Skip it: First time filmmaker Diane English (“Murphy Brown”) labored for over a decade to bring this project to the screen, but passion shouldn’t be confused with vision. Her barely competent direction results in a film that lurches awkwardly from one poorly staged scene to the next, leaving it entirely up to the actors to find their own way. That’s OK for a pro like Bening—who imagines Sylvie as an ultimate chick flick hybrid of Samantha Jones and Miranda Priestly—less so for almost everyone else. It’s been too long since Ryan had a high profile lead role, but this isn’t the comeback she deserves.

Catch it: To marvel at English’s insistence at keeping with the material’s all-female cast tradition. There’s literally not a man on screen, ever. Too bad it just feels like a pointless gimmick this time around, considering the amount of exterior scenes (no men on the streets of New York? Really?) and the importance of Mary’s husband to the plot.

Bottom line: English’s stabs at modernizing the story (the women have careers! Alex is a lesbian!) simultaneously fail at creating relatable portraits of contemporary women and compelling reasons to spend time with the characters. If you’re dying for a split screen fashion show or yet another manic cinematic childbirth sequence, you’ll get want you pay for. But fans of female bonding already had a far superior fix with “Sex,” and even the creaky “Mamma Mia!” offered a higher quality of frivolous escapism.

Bonus: Candice Bergen, who co-stars as Mary’s mother, previously played Ryan’s mother on film in 1981’s “Rich and Famous.” Which coincidentally was also the last film for director George Cukor, who directed the (superior) 1939 version of “The Women.”

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