The Women

 The movie covered all the margins within the marginalized standpoint of women—the working mother, the independent can’t-hold-a-man-because-they-fear-her-success, the black lesbian, and the educated woman who is in an “equal” marriage that quickly falls apart in an affair (with the trashy gold digger).

The film was supposed to be an invitation to women everywhere to share inside jokes and knowledge about what it means to be a woman—going as far as to completely exclude men from the cast. That is, until the very last scene where the newborn baby boy is held up—a la Lion King—and floats through the cloudy background as if he’s a gift from heaven.

I admit there were a few moments where I fell into the story and felt the smugness that was (I assume) supposed to be present through the whole film, no doubt because there were countless women working on the film, so inevitably there would be some things that would ring true.

The potential that I felt develop about an hour into the film turned more into a make-over for the suffering woman and a not-so-subtle message that a woman looks and dresses well in order to do well. Heels, hose, and plastic surgery give women the strength they need to move forward, get over a man—and find another.

The dialectical tension that plagues some women (like me) between being successful and independent, and being domestic and a mother, came to a melodramatic climax that lifted up both sides and revealed that, essentially, both sides have to be present to feel whole. The scene was handled poorly, and mostly made it all seem as if it was a joke and not necessarily the point of the film.

Halfway into the film I started to feel bored, because as much as I love being a woman, and as much as I believe that women deserve more than we generally receive, and as independent as I am, I still have to acknowledge that we are only half of the human race. Despite my belief that women can do it all, I felt myself missing the male presence in this film. (On principle, though I can do it on my own, it doesn’t mean that I necessarily want to do everything without a man).

With the ending, however, I felt smarmy and disgusting as I realized that WANTING the man’s presence is EXACTLY what the film was trying to create—and that the baby boy at the end is the culmination of the entire film’s pent up frustration. It’s secretly saying, “C’mon, girls—really? Look at your lives—forgive the cheating husband, settle down with a man, have another baby—because that’s the joy of being a woman! Do we really need all this fighting and raging for women’s rights? We have everything we need right here! Men really are our gift from heaven.”

Overall, the film was not empowering—and actually made me believe that we are in a backlash against feminism because we clearly live in a post-feminist utopia.

Disappointing. Frustrating. I think it had great potential, but failed miserably to meet it.

I really wanted to like the film, but just couldn’t.

three.