Fridae

For the benefit of our lesbian readers, whose interest may be piqued by the wonderfully straightforward title The Women, you should know that this is the first film of 2009 to feature a lesbian character (played by Jada Pinkett Smith). Unfortunately, the film itself is not one that lesbians or women in general could be proud of.

Directed by Diane English (the creator of Murphy Brown), The Women is dull, silly and inconsequential. The women here are mostly rich, sheltered and shallow, prone to talking and worrying and bitching, and then talking and worrying and bitching some more. As if things weren't bad enough, the all-women cast is led by Meg Ryan, one of most airheaded actresses in Hollywood.

Meg plays a clothing designer with a perfect child and a perfect husband who works in Wall Street - until she finds out that her husband is cheating on her with the perfectly gorgeous perfume counter girl (Eva Mendes). She confides in her friends - the black lesbian writer (Jada Pinkett Smith), the workaholic career woman (Annette Benning) and perpetually pregnant mother (Debra Messing).

(Did we miss any stereotype of the modern woman?)

Meg struggles over what to do. Should she confront him? Should she divorce him? Is this the first film to deal to the issue of infidelity? It sure as hell isn't, so why do the characters behave as if this is all new and sensational territory?

The Women is a remake of a black-and-white 1939 movie, and it certainly feels that old. The dialogue is stale and the insights - if you could call them that - are nothing new. At one point, Meg asks another character: "What do you think this is, some kind of nineteen-thirties movie?" Funny you should ask that�

(Actually, The Women is refreshing to watch as there is not a single man to be seen in the movie-Ed)