The Other Woman

Don Roos's 'Happy Endings' and 'The Opposite of Sex' are among my favourite movies and his 'Web Therapy' is one of my favourite series. Thus, I was quite excited about 'Love and Other Impossible Pursuits' despite the negative reviews. Sadly this one does not match up even close to any of Roos's previous works. The major fault lies in the writing, especially the characterization. Portman's Emilia is a cardboard of a woman going through the loss of her child and is bitter towards everyone around her. Cohen's Jack is the typical husband who's holding it together and Kudrow's Carolyne is the clichéd bitchy ex-wife. Because of the lack of dimension in character, it's hard to judge the acting.

However, I'd say the actors did the best with what they're given. The best acting moment is the final sequence between Kudrow and Portman (that takes place in Carolyne's office). Here Kudrow, in a wonderfully subtle way, displays layers of emotions and Portman's reaction is good. The other actors don't get much scope except Charlie Tahan who is quite alright.

The movie has a polished look to it. The cinematography is good but the score is very intrusive and adds a feel of melodrama almost like a fluffy TV movie.

I haven't read the book and so I cannot tell what Roos took from the book. But he is a talented writer and filmmaker so hope his next venture come close to the aforementioned examples.

Love And Other Impossible Pursuits (horribly changed to The Other Woman) is based on a best-seller novel of the same name by Ayelet Waldman.

In the movie, Emilia (Natalie Portman) is a young, happy, beautiful and notorious lawyer that falls in love with Jack (Scott Cohen) the man who left his first wife Carolyn (Lisa Kudrow) to marry Emilia and also give himself some new colors in life. Jack and Carolyn have a young boy, William (Charlie Tahan), which have some difficulties to accept Emilia as a new member of the family and is always influenced by his mother's tough thoughts and her lack of respect for Isabel's death, the child Emilia and Jack lost few days after her birth. Carolyn also doesn't accept the fact that her son will not have the paternal presence anymore but in the other hand can't handle Emilia's efforts to conquer William's appreciation because all her tries fails with unintentional careless attitudes.

The movie hides from the audience when, why or how Isabel died till the last moment to intensify dramatic moments and give time to plot developments, which works but some elements in the book aren't clear in the movie. The movie focuses her tough relationship with her stepson forgetting some of her problems about why she hates so much other places and people that surrounds her. Of course that we know that all her angry and hate are related to her loss, but seems like everything is just a result of her depression and not because all that she once loved remember somehow her child or her intense desires to be a perfect mother and wife with the man she loves deeply. And those are the other impossible pursuits the title talks about.

Don Roos is a great director who deals with the short thin line between human losses and the problems that come along with it, expressing human feelings in its real form never desperate to get tears from the audience with lame dramatic situations. His movies are always simple, linear and easy to understand but honest enough to make us considering how complex are human feelings and the relationship between them. That's how he succeeds with titles like his acclaimed breakthrough The Opposite Of Sex (1998) and the less known but equally good Happy Endings (2005). But here seems that things are sometimes superficial enough as an ordinary drama that succeeds but could give us a little more than is given. When everything seems simple enough suddenly he tries hard more than is concerned like the Freud-ish analysis using Oedipus parallels and relationship transferring, adding nothing solid to the plot more than a few minutes plus of some unnecessary composition.

Natalie Portman is great for sure, apathetic and cold as the character is even when sometimes her character's egocentrism and selfishness seems a little exhaustive. The same can be said about the other actors, specially Don Ross' longtime collaborator Lisa Kudrow, that once more gives some comedic situations to relieve some melodramatic sequences but suddenly is able to transform a funny performance into an absolutely emotional and delicate situation. The example of Kudrow's outstanding ability is obvious when she calls Emilia to explain the truth about Isabel's death. That scene is fantastic in its simplistic form and what give us reasons to watch Don Roos movies from the beginning to the end.

A beautiful movie, sometimes corny but effective in its purpose.

unlike the comment i've just read through, i don't see this movie is trying to make Emilia (natalie Portman) as any kind of hero. Rather, I see how this movie portraits how contradictory life is, got married with someone who's changed over time and the sparks are not there anymore, seeing a man who you fall in love in first sight but he's married, grow up in a broken family angry with the irresponsible dad but turned out everyone forgive him for nothing, giving birth to a baby but it dies in 3 days, have to be step-mother dealing with a "son" that's not yours, all these make Emilia lost, she started pissing off people, from strangers to her husband, she did try fixing all those from time to time but either she did it the wrong way or it just so happened that things are too complicated to straighten out, life's just too complicated. at the end everyone around her cannot put up with her anymore, not even her husband...

and probably all she's done was due to that at the bottom the heart there was a knot, a thing that she couldn't let go couldn't forgive herself, until Carolyne told her no, u didn't do it, it wasn't your fault.

after then, she changed, but only to find that the world is not like the same, no matter what she does things done are irreversible, and no matter how u apologize or make your talk the ones who was once closest to u can simply turn their back to u giving u an answer "no, i cannot do it", and this is a very true portrait of life, and it touches me.

to me, i don't see any ethical problem or anythg like such in the movie, after all it's not uncommon to see more hysterical stuff happening around us in this world this story is just about life and how tiny and complicated it can be to every of us.

is basically what this movie is about. And the film goes out of its way to make the two female character, played by Portman and Kudrow, seem very dislikable. Kudrow is the ex-wife and is just plain ugly at times with what she says and is a control freak. You don't feel sorry for her that her husband left her for a younger woman. Who would want to listen to her carry on at home. Portman, is the younger woman, Emilia, whom steels her boss, Jack, from Kudrow. She gets pregnant, so he decides to divorce and marry her. Their baby dies 3 days after being born. Then there is the stepson, William, whom seems to set Emilia off. She seems very annoyed by him and always does or say the wrong thing. Emilia also has problems with her father and brings that into her marriage. The way everyone is portrayed in the movie makes you wonder how they ever got married in the first place.

FINAL VERDICT: No one is likable in this. Not worth a viewing.

Natalie Portman plays Emilia, the other woman. Emilia had an affair with her boss, Jack. Jack divorced his wife to marry Emilia. Everybody did not live happily ever after. From the moment we first meet her it is obvious Emilia is struggling. There is tension in her marriage, her efforts to be a stepmother to Jack's son are failing miserably. And there is an undercurrent of sadness always lingering, a horrible tragedy having occurred, a tragedy which haunts Emilia. The woman is a wreck, her life is a sad shambles. And she's not getting much sympathy. Jack's first wife Carolyn, not without reason, despises Emilia and does everything she can to make the life of the woman who replaced her completely miserable. Carolyn poisons her son, William, against Emilia. William has no respect for Emilia and acts out against his stepmother in rather cruel ways. All the mothers of William's classmates treat Emilia with utter disdain, scorning her as a home wrecker. Jack is the only person Emilia has to turn to but even that relationship is strained. It's a desperately sad situation yet many people would say Emilia is getting exactly what she deserves.

Emilia certainly is not a perfect person by any means. She has gone down some morally deficient paths. And with her cold personality she's a very hard person to warm up to. But as the story unfolds, flashing back to happier times and then to desperately sad times before catching up with the present, you can see where that coldness might come from. This is a woman who has been emotionally wounded in the worst possible way and who carries around an unbearably burdensome guilt. Yes, she made mistakes but she is now doing the best she can to put things right. She could use a little help but that help is very hard to come by. A woman who breaks up a family is not the most sympathetic of characters and that is a bit of a problem for this movie. Because for the movie to work you really have to sympathize with, and pull for, Emilia. And at times that is very hard to do.

Portman does a reasonably good job in the starring role. The story requires Emilia to be cold and often unpleasant. Perhaps Portman made Emilia just a little bit too cold for the movie's good. Lisa Kudrow, playing Carolyn, holds nothing back. If Emilia is somewhat cold Carolyn is the absolute ice queen. If anything makes you sympathize with Emilia it is the way Carolyn berates her at every opportunity. Charlie Tahan, playing young William, seems to grow into his role as the movie progresses. At first William comes across like a total brat but the kid has been put in a tough spot. It seems he wants to hurt Emilia but maybe he's just a kid, maybe he doesn't even realize the impact of his words and actions. As the relationship between William and Emilia evolves Tahan and Portman have some nice moments together. And in a movie filled with so much hurt we really need some nice moments. You would think the role of Jack would be vitally important, and it probably should be. But Scott Cohen does not make much of an impression in that role. A few other characters pop up with their own accompanying subplots, most notably Emilia's parents. But the movie is really all about Emilia, all that she has to deal with and her struggles to handle it all. In the end it does not come together perfectly. Things get a little melodramatic and the movie rushes through an awkward ending which doesn't really work. However there are enough good things here to make The Other Woman worth seeing. The story isn't perfect, the characters are flawed but the movie still holds your attention. Not a great movie by any means but reasonably compelling and entertaining.