The Other Woman: Movie Review

Director Nick Cassavetes has helmed all types of films. The crime drama “Alpha Dog”, the romantic drama “The Notebook”, the hospital-hostage drama “John Q” and now he tries his hand at a somewhat raunchy comedy with “The Other Woman”. This is definitely not like any of the filmmaker’s previous works, and for the most part “The Other Woman” delivers the laughs, in no small part to one of its’ stars, Leslie Mann.

Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is far from faithful to his loving wife Kate (Leslie Mann). When in the city, Mark spends time with his girlfriend Carly (Cameron Diaz). When Carly decides to surprise Mark at his home, Kate answers the door, and that’s when the two women realize that Mark has been up to no good. Because Kate has no friends of her own and nobody to talk to about what is happening, she does everything in her power to form a friendship with Carly since she is the only other person that knows what’s going on. It doesn’t take long for the pair to actually become friends and when they find out that Mark has a third girl, the young and not-so-bright Amber (Kate Upton), the three women decided to turn the tables on Mark and make his life a living hell.

“The Other Woman” is funny, there is no denying it, but without Mann on hand, the film would have most likely been a failure. I never found Diaz all that funny and Upton is totally awful here. She just cannot act. Nicki Minaj delivers a few mildly amusing quips for the limited time she is on screen, but Mann seems to single handedly make this into a film worth checking out. Even the way the comedic actress vomits is done with skill. You remember her drunken vomit scene from “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, well she gives us another little barf beauty here as well. “The Other Woman” isn’t great cinema but you are sure to get a handful of laughs out of it.

By: Marc Ferman