How terrible is Diane English's remake of George Cukor's classic 1939 comedy
The Women? It's pretty terrible. About ten minutes into
The Women, I wanted to pause the movie and take a few minutes to list stereotypes about femininity and female life, so we could check them off as they occurred in this movie.
Here are a few of the most revolting, puzzling, and offensive moments. Those of you who have seen it (why?), please feel free to disagree or add to my list.
1. Jada Pinkett Smith plays The Black Lesbian (doubling up on your tokenism is so economical!) and early in the movie she has a conversation with Debra Messing in which Messing asks why there are so many lesbians now, the implication being that JPS is gay because it's trendy. JPS agrees, pointing out that women are better lovers than men because they don't leave the toilet seat up. Huh?
2. When Meg Ryan's character is having an emotional crisis, she eats a stick of butter. It's probably the most striking image in the movie, evoking my strongest emotional response (revulsion).
3. A remarkable fact about
The Women (1939) is that it has a cast of all women. Set in places inhabited in the 1930s largely or only by women - a salon, the dressing room of a high-end department store, a divorce ranch in Reno - the story sets out to examine relationships among women. In the remake, the cast is still (with one glaring exception, which is in the final irritating scene..but no spoilers) all female, but senselessly so. In this movie, scenes take places in public streets and
for no apparent reason there are no men walking down those streets. It is a strange distortion of the relatively interesting gimmick on which the original story was built.
4. Another weird change from the original that bothered me: Silvia Fowler (Roslalind Russell/Annette Benning) is weirdly softened in the remake. In both cases, she's extremely shallow, but in the 1939 version she's catty and heartless and shallow, while in the remake she's just unbelievably thoughtless. Norma Shearer's Mary really has no reliable friends but her mother and her daughter. Meg Ryan's Mary forgives and forgets a lot. Too much.
5. This is in no way unique to
The Women but when we rewatched the 1939 version after watching the new version, I was again struck by how unpleasantly thin leading ladies are these days. Perhaps it was to disguise her painful gauntness that Meg Ryan (a fashion designer) is dressed in horizontal black and white stripes in almost every single scene.
6. I do not have enough time to list the cliches. Like when Messing had to leave a reception because ohmygod her water just broke. Or when JPS is so grossed out by childbirth (she's a lesbian, see?). Or when Meg Ryan EATS A STICK OF BUTTER.
(Photos: Meg Ryan looks completely scary. Norma Shearer decorates a garden for some reason.)
So watching Milk the second time confirmed that I disagree with what everyone is saying about it. I liked Sean Penn less the second time, and liked the movie more. And I would like to bake James Franco a cake, he's so pretty and talented. I think Sean Penn is Just Fine, not Completely Amazing.* And I think the movie itself is fascinating in ways nobody is talking about. e.g. that thing where the imagined conversations are explicitly undermined. There is a framing scene, with Harvey and Scott (Penn and Franco) in bed eating cake on Harvey's birthday. We see it very near the beginning and again right at the end, but the two versions are different, as if to remind us that while parts of the story are heavily documented, other parts are necessarily made up. I think Milk is the most honest biopic I've seen, because it's explicit about its failures. Or something. I can't stop talking about it!
during every conflict between characters means there was a relation. Nothing but coincidence.