Genre:
Drama
Directed
by: Don Roos
Cast:
Natalie Portman, Lisa Kudrow, Lauren Ambrose
Running
time: 102 minutes
Based on the Ayelet Waldman novel titled Love
and Other Impossible Pursuits, The Other Woman is the story of Emilia
Greenleaf, who falls in love with married attorney Jack Woolf. Jack leaves his
physician wife, Carolyn, to start a new family with Emilia, but their newborn
child dies at the age of three days old. Still reeling from this major loss,
Emilia tries to pick up the pieces of herself all the while attempting to build
a positive relationship with Jack’s young son from his previous marriage,
William. It all proves to be a very difficult task.
Natalie Portman is solid as usual, as Emilia
Greenleaf. She has to convey a myriad of emotions and she does so in a
convincing way. That is no surprise. I must admit I did not particularly care
for Lisa Kudrow, in the role of the vengeful ex-wife. Anytime I see her on
screen, I can’t seem to dissociate her from her role in Friends, and it pulls
me out of any story I am trying to get into. It was the same problem here,
though her presence was minor enough not to detract too badly.
The Other Woman got some heavily negative
reviews from critics, mostly in regards to the directing work and the script
many referred to as cluttered. I, for one, did not find it that bad. The
director managed to avoid many traps of the melodramatic tales. In my book, it
never went too far overboard. Through flashbacks, we could put together the
pieces of the past that was still haunting the main character, and I found it
easy to follow along. I was hooked and wanted to know more. The script could
have been cleaned up a bit, but it was not as bad as many made it out to be.
While far from perfect, The Other Woman
offers a compelling story nicely carried by a very talented Natalie Portman.
Rating:
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