Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

The Other Woman Blu-ray Movie Review

The First (and Second and Third) Mistresses Club

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 29, 2014

Olivia Goldsmith caught some special wave of the feminine mystique (not to put too fine a point on it) when she crafted The First Wives Club and gave countless women, especially divorcées, the revenge fantasy of their dreams. The film version of Goldsmith’s novel was a similar hit despite receiving some decidedly mixed reviews, probably from (divorced) men. If feminism at its root has been a movement about granting equality, self-determination and, yes, power to the so-called “weaker sex”, then properties like The First Wives Club signal an artistic recognition that some sort of transformation has taken place—even if it’s sometimes belated and confined to individuals, rather than a sweeping and instantaneous social change. The Other Woman is a kind of sad, sometimes off putting film that plays a lot like The First Wives Club at times, at least with regard to a trio of wounded women who decide to exact revenge on a duplicitous (maybe triplicitous or even quadraplicitous) male. There’s a generational difference here, with the main female characters being several years younger than the forty- or fifty-somethings of The First Wives Club, but there’s still a none too subtle subtext of women finally coming to their senses, refusing to believe the lies men have told them, and then banding together to give one particular man a definite comeuppance. Unfortunately, The Other Woman never rises to either the ebullience or snarkiness of The First Wives Club, and it further hobbles what limited comedic sensibility it’s able to muster by going off in completely odd directions, both tonally and structurally. While a lot of this tendency can be attributed squarely to lackluster writing on the part of scenarist Melissa Stack, at least part of this peculiar approach may be due to the fact that director Nick Cassavetes’ (genetic?) sentiments for grittiness may work against a film that wants desperately more than anything to be liked—kind of like its heroines.

In other ways The Other Woman seems to be willfully provoking its audience to laugh in semi-disgust, kind of like similar gambits in films like Bridesmaids and There's Something About Mary, which perhaps only coincidentally also co-starred Cameron Diaz. In this film, Diaz portrays successful attorney Carly, a woman whose professional accomplishments far outshine her romantic ones. Carly has become involved with Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and while Carly is hoping that he could finally be “the one”, Mark seems oddly preoccupied and sanguine about having to temporarily abandon Carly for some out of town work on his home. One of the first of many missteps this film makes is in revealing what a heel Mark is from the get go, courtesy of a quick phone call that gives away the game too soon. The audience should be as deceived as Carly is at this point, but Stack lays it all out in broad strokes that hide nothing.

Carly turns to her father Frank (Don Johnson) for advice, a strategy that eventuates what is The Other Woman’s main conceit: Carly herself is the mistress, for it turns out that Mark is married, a revelation which stuns Carly when she shows up at Mark’s house for what she hopes will be a sexual escapade (this begs the question as to why a married man would make him—or at least his house—so easy to find). Mark’s wife Kate (Leslie Mann) turns out to be far from nonplussed about the whole situation (there’s a hint that she’s been through it all before), and against all odds (and some near hysteria on the part of Kate), the two women end up forging a halting friendship centered around their mutual feelings of betrayal.

And here The Other Woman fattens the revenge calf by introducing yet another one of Mark's conquests, a somewhat younger woman named Amber (Kate Upton). In an even more unlikely bonding than that between Carly and Kate, Amber is soon brought into a scheme to teach Mark a lesson he won't forget. But instead of any of the gambits shown by the formerly married trio in The First Wives Club or even the three female co-workers out to humiliate their bullying boss in 9 to 5, The Other Woman stumbles around in the figurative dark, with a number of supposedly "real" and "modern" responses to the situation that ring increasingly far fetched.

If The Other Woman had had the courage to be as brash and unabashedly rude as Bridesmaids or any given Farrelly Brothers enterprise, it could have been at least a passably funny enterprise. But for every attempt at foul mouthed potty humor or politically (or sexually) incorrect behavior, the film retreats into cliché ridden tropes that completely enervate whatever momentum has been fitfully built up. The film wants these three women to rise above their victimhood, and yet it repeatedly makes them the victim. This is nowhere more apparent than in the character of Kate, who actually returns to Mark in one of the film’s more questionable second act developments. It’s obviously a grasping maneuver meant to inject some emotional ambivalence into Kate’s already fractured state of being, but it just ends up making the poor woman look like more of a wallflower than she already appears to be.

The real surprise here is how flat Diaz's performance is. This preternaturally perky (for want of a better term) actress just seems to be sleep walking through a lot of The Other Woman, perhaps hoping that it's all a bad dream. She's unusually hard looking throughout the film, as if there's a foundation of stress informing her work, instead of the character. It's hard to laugh at someone when you feel so sorry for them.

The Other Woman Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Other Woman is presented on Blu-ray by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Lo and behold, this is a contemporary comedy shot on actual film, and there's a beautiful depth and texture to a lot of this presentation that makes it fun to watch, even when the actual content is far from satisfying. Director Cassavetes and his DP Robert Fraisse do a lot of great location work, capturing both hectic cityscapes and some lovely beach locales. Colors are very nicely saturated and accurate looking, and close-ups reveal excellent fine detail. Contrast is very strong, segueing easily from dark interior shots like a bar Carly and Kate go to, to bright lit outdoor scenes like the beach where they track down Amber. There are no signs of digital manipulation here, and the result is a nicely filmic presentation that should easily please the film's fans.

The Other Woman Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Other Woman's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix has occasional chances to turn up the surround juice in some boisterous crowd scenes and even some of the outdoor location sequences, but this is a simple dialogue driven film at its most basic level. The mix here supports the dialogue and relatively minimalist ambient environmental effects effortlessly, with excellent fidelity and no issues of any kind to report.

The Other Woman Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted/Alternate Scenes (1080p; 9:48)


• Gag Reel (1080p; 3:32)


• Giggle Fit (1080p; 5:18) shows Diaz and Mann struggling (unsuccessfully) to get a usable take. This is actually funnier than most of the film.


• Gallery (1080p; 1:03)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:20)

The Other Woman Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Other Woman may provoke a smile or two, and maybe even a passing giggle here and there, but it's hardly in the ribald arena frequented by Melissa McCarthy or the Farrelly Brothers. Diaz seems to be lost here, leaving most of the heavy lifting to Mann, who is saddled with a completely neurotic character who basically careens from crisis to crisis. This film did very well at the box office, proving critical brickbats can only go so far in defeating a star of Cameron Diaz's immense allure, and for what seems to be the sizable fan base for this film, the good news is that the presentation here is top notch.