Woman City

A worthy story, but without enough flesh on the bones for even its short runtime.

A group of women start a women-only (and one male child) commune but are harassed by local men. Except they really aren't. There is minimal interaction with the men, although what there is is as bad as it gets. A very slow opening hour sets the scene and introduces a small number of characters, each of whom describes their path to this point. Unfortunately this is talky, with an unconvincing flashback to an incident in a library, of all places.

The ghost town where they seek to reestablish themselves is little more than a group of huts, and they sleep on bare ground, with no reference to electricity, gas, water or supplies except a very brief clip of a hand pump and a mention of toilet paper. The question of how they will live is addressed by a character with a furrowed brow asking "How will we live?"

Most of the main characters are so bland that the cast have little chance to make anything of their roles. The one who stands out, a Harley-riding Texan trucker, makes the most of her opportunity to act up, but the contrast ends up too great.

When the action starts it goes 0-60 in no time at all, with no exploration of how the women arrive at their eventual decision, which seems both out-of-character and a deus ex machina contrivance to draw things to a close.

The sentiment and effort is there, with a big heart, but as a piece of cinema it remains unconvincing and barely engaging.