I like The Women the first time I saw it when it was called The First Wives Club. But seriously, I really have to congratulate writer/director Diane English for making a remake of one movie feel like a remake of an entirely different movie. As for this film, I vaguely remember it passing me by last fall in the midst of several other films that had my attention. I also remember that this film is one of the more famous former residents of Development Hell, with remakes previously proposed as early as the 70s with Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, and Faye Dunaway starring.

This Women stars Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett-Smith as four friends balancing their busy careers and busier lives in modern New York. The focus though is on Ryan’s character Mary Haines; a fashion designer with a philandering husband engaged in an affair with the perfume girl at Saks Fifth Avenue (played by Eva Mendes). Bening’s character, Sylvia Fowler, is Mary’s best friend, and initially tries to hide this juicy gossip from her BFF until her source, a manicurist at Saks (Debi Mazar, good to see her get some work) lets it slip to Mary. (Which begs the question, does this woman just tell everyone the same bit of gossip?)

Much of the film is about how Mary copes with the news that her husband, the never-seen Steven, has been unfaithful to her, and how she copes after she kicks him out of her life and serves him with notice of divorce. It seems oddly incongruent that a smart, independent and accomplished modern woman would mope in her PJs after firing her cheating husband, but that’s what the script does in order to launch an apparent journey of self-re-discovery for Mary. In fact, there are a lot of mixed messages in this film is supposed to summarily come to the conclusion that the question shouldn’t be “can you have it all,” but rather “do you really want it all to begin with?”

The main point of interest in the screenplay though is the fact that it’s devoid of male characters, and instead either talks around them, or doesn’t show them at all. It’s an interesting idea, but interesting ideas should become part of the story and not stick out like a sore thumb. And the way English gets around it, with one-sided telephone conversations and characters talking about overhearing things, the lack of males really draws attention to itself. Sometimes you can get into to it, but other times it feels like a scene’s been re-cut or taken out, leaving a hole in the dramatics. It feels kind of theatrical, as if the idea would work on stage, but in the film gimmickry’s hard to feel natural.

The cast was mostly underwhelming, which is something you don’t want to say with the acting talent at English’s disposal here. I would have like to have seen more of Pinkett-Smith’s writer character Alex Fisher, who always seemed to have an interesting impartial observation just before the hysterics reared up again. Cloris Leachman as Mary’s maid (I guess she’s supposed to be) is a hoot and a half no matter what she is, and was easily the funniest thing in this movie. Bening gets points for getting in a few laughs of her own, but alternatively she’s saddled with the two, really insulting plotlines so she gets hammered by both the best and the worst that this movie has to offer.

But what’s most problematic with the film is that while they might have updated the time and place, they didn’t seem to take the time to update the material. As a result The Women feels like it’s about 10 years out of date, and otherwise sitcom-like in its set-ups and delivery without any real hint at the sophistication it implies. Many of the actresses are either miscast or wasted, and far too often the script that their supposed to be delivering with vigour seems to really drag out. An A for effort, and an A for finally getting this remake off paper, but this is a D film even at its best.