Look out for more coverage of
The Women in our magazines

THE MOVIE: The Women

THE STARS:
Meg Ryan • Annette Bening • Eva Mendes • Cloris Leachmen • Debi Mazar • Jada Pinkett Smith • Bette Midler • Candice Bergen • Debra Messing
DIRECTOR: Diane English

THE CONCEPT:
Based on George Cukor’s 1939 movie, the updated version centers around Mary Haines (Ryan), who discovers by means of a gossipy manicurist, Tanya (Mazar), that her husband is cheating on her with a perfume saleswoman, Crystal (Mendes). Her best friends, Sylvie (Bening), Edie (Messing) and Alex (Smith) close ranks around her, each offering opinions about what she should do.

U.S. RELEASE: September 12 2008, Nationwide
• Rated: PG-13

THE COMMENTS:

DIANE ENGLISH:
It took almost 14 years [to get this to the screen] and one of the reasons it took as long as it did is because it’s an all-female cast. The nature of the movie industry now is that it caters to young men under 25 and they go to movies multiple times. We’ve always believed if you give women something of themselves onscreen that’s meaningful, they will come and they’ll come in big numbers, and I think the box office of several movies this summer has bourn that out and we’ll have a nice, healthy box office too.

MEG RYAN:
There are certain observations that I thought were interesting in the movie. Sometimes we disagreed on whether [Mary] should stay or go in the marriage. One thing from reading the script I appreciated, Diane was trying to make a case for both with the X factor being the fact that she was in love with her husband. When this occurs in a woman’s life, it’s an enormous thing to happen. Your husband is cheating on you. What do you do? Who are your allies? Who comes to your aid? All of these things are relevant and equally true now. It’s just a different observation on an age-old trouble.

ANNETTE BENING:
It was fun to play a businesswoman, a woman who wasn’t a mother. I really liked playing a woman who wasn’t conflicted about not having children. I have friends who haven’t had children who are so free. I thought it would be refreshing to have a woman who wasn’t torn about not having children, she just didn’t want them.

EVA MENDES:
Diane and I talked about bringing some fun to Crystal. We didn’t want to vamp her out and make her this evil woman with an arched eyebrow. We wanted to realize that she was actually just very desperate. She’s not a bad person. Her time is running out. She’s not a husband stealer like I’m gonna get you. She’s more like, ‘Look, Mary Haines, you’ve had your fun. You’ve had money all your life. You have your kid with this guy. You have your house. Let me have a piece of the pie. After a few years, you’ll get him back.’ We came at it that way and I had more fun playing her.

DEBI MAZAR:
I auditioned for this 13 years ago, and Diane cast me 13 years later without seeing me, I’d had two kids; I’d changed. The fact that she called me and gave me the part, that’s women supporting women. It’s a lot more fun hanging around this lot than boys!

ENGLISH:
The old movie has iconic scenes in it and I lifted a lot of those almost word-for-word so that fans of the original movie will see things that are touchstones that they’ll recognize.

MENDES:
I’d seen the movie before because it’s a classic. I’ve gotten a lot of questions today like, ‘How was it to fill Joan Crawford’s shoes?’ And I’m like, ‘I didn’t even try to fill Joan Crawford’s shoes. Don’t put that in my head.’ It’s nerve-wracking because she’s Joan Crawford. My God! She killed it as Crystal Allen. It was one of those things where I didn’t allow the original to intimidate, because that was its own thing. We were doing our own thing.

BENING:
I’m really lucky because I have such wonderful friends, close girlfriends in my life. Some of them are from when I was little and we used to play pretend together, and I have stayed close to them. A number of girls from college and my acting conservatory are my dear, close friends. There’s a kind of sustenance that you get from your female friends that is so unique.

RYAN on successful women in a marriage:
I think it’s definitely something women deal with still. When a woman is eclipsing a man in the marketplace it definitely is trouble in a relationship. It’s something that needs to be coped with as intelligently as you can.

ENGLISH:
The tagline on the original movie is "The Women is all about men." Ours is, "‘It’s all about the women." I think our girlfriends are so important to us as modern women. They get us through so much. In the end, it’s about two women with a great friendship and they go through a breakup. There’s a betrayal there just like there is in the marriage. I want you to care more about whether there is forgiveness there, and whether that can be repaired, than actually the marriage. The fact that this movie hadn’t been done in 70 years, the fact that people said it couldn’t be done again made us want to get it done.

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official The Women site
Images above © Picturehouse
Feature © 2008 Visual Imagination.
Not for reproduction.

Keep up with the latest movie news, reviews and features with every issue of Film Review and the Film Review Ultimate Special

VI DIRECT
Stores Info

You can order any of our magazines via this
secure service.

To SUBSCRIBE to
FILM REVIEW, use these
links to our stores: