This week in local theaters
by Ella Taylor
THE WOMEN Trailing negative buzz and a revolving door of A-list talent since its inception in 1994, Diane English's pudding of a remake of George Cukor's wicked 1939 satire of Manhattan socialites isn't so much incompetent as it is hopelessly tame and muddled. The Women has all the visual glamour of a suburban rummage sale, and it doesn't help that an annoyingly girlish Meg Ryan—in the Norma Shearer role as Mary, a contented Connecticut supermom who's shaken to her core by the news that her husband is having an affair—has had so much facial work that her features are immobilized. (And this in a movie that sucks whatever laughs it can muster from the Botox subculture.) Notwithstanding Annette Bening's wispy gossip (and with Eva Mendes subbing feebly for Joan Crawford's hussy), there's not a bona fide double-talking vixen in the entire coven. Before you know it, The Women has shrunk to fit the sewing form of a television movie whose heroine is briefly floored by adversity before rising from the ashes, coiffed à la L'Oreal 'cause she's worth it, and fully employed with a little help from her loyal BFFs. Cripplingly sensitive to its market potential, The Women hedges its bets and covers every possible female demographic base before wilting into a gooey maternity-ward finale. Another dismal chick flick after a summer full of them. (Opens Friday)
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