Comparitive Analysis of "The Women" (1939 and 2008)

Flipping through countless HD channels one day when I was home, I came across a 2008 movie called “The Women,” with an all-star line up. I vaguely remember hearing about it when it was released in theaters, but it didn’t sound like the kind of movie I would watch. I don’t know what made me think watching it at home for free would change that. After a few minutes, I realized I was watching a slow moving train wreck, but could not force myself to change the channel. I became obsessed with figuring out why someone spent all this money on this A-list cast for a film that, as a woman, offended every fiber of my being.

Since Diane English (who also did Murphy Brown and won three Primetime Emmys) decided to direct this remake, I decided to Netflix the original. After a little research, it became clear that the modern version suffered from what too many films suffer from: Executive Summary Envy. The original black and white version produced by Hunt Stromberg and directed by George Cukor in 1939 was one of the highest grossing films of that year. Based on a successful stage play written by Claire Booth Luce, the show ran for 666 performances and gained an earmark in history for the “novelty of an all-female cast…known for its nasty dialogue and unparalleled wit” (quotes take from the DVD features menu). With such a successful original, combined with a modern cast of beautiful, talented women, the overall summary of the remake sounds like a fantastic idea. People must have been so envious of that executive summary that someone forgot to read the script.

After careful analysis, I think I can put my finger on why this remake failed. In the 1939 version, the central character Mary Haines is aware that the women she is surrounded by are there because of their social status (they all married rich men on Park Ave). So when her “friend” Sylvie Prowler informs her of her husband’s infidelity with a shop girl through no small measure of taunting, Mary keeps a stiff arm in Prowler’s direction and keeps her chin up for her daughter’s sake – a daughter with whom she has a close and healthy relationship. (Prowler's character in the 1939 film reminded me of Lucille Ball). In the remake, Mary seems completely unaware that her social circle has formed around money, even if they didn’t marry a man to get to Park Ave. In fact, the Mary played by Meg Ryan seems to be oblivious to many things, including what it means to be a good mother, which removes any empathy the audience would need to have for the central character of the film.

Yes, the casting was off, but the writing flat lined faster than Ryan’s hairstyle. The original had lines like:

Personal trainer: “Women should enter the room vertical.”

Prowler: “Most women I know leave horizontally.”

And...

Prowler to Edie Cohen (played by Edith Potter): “You should get your hair done where I do mine. I simply despise whoever does yours.”

The 2008 film attempted at strikes like these but wound up with lazy fill-in-the-blank jokes. I won’t even waste time repeating them.

I also think that English missed the depth of Mary’s character evolution. The original took Mary away from her Park Avenue circles where she found herself among other Reno divorcees (laws in New York made divorce harder to prove back then when there were fewer no-fault divorce states. Reno probably had the shortest residence requirements). This new circle of women barely knew Mary and could care less for her social status so they had no qualms talking to her straight, making them, in the end, truer friends than the girls in New York.

It’s called a character arch and even comedies have them. But in the 2008 version, it’s complete missing. Or rather, it has been replaced by a shallow epiphany which dawns on Mary while smoking pot with Bette Midler’s character at a yoga camp. Ryan’s character is told to be selfish and do “what makes you happy.” Apparently this is English’s modern translation of the original “pride is a luxury a woman in love cannot afford.” If that is how far we’ve come in 70 years, we’ve got bigger problems than a poor remake.

Without the real women in Reno to balance the superficial women in New York, without the dubiously delicious mantrap character made famous by Joan Crawford, and without a sympathetic central character, what remains? The most depressing comedy of 2008.

While a bad script may have slipped by the studio, viewers caught every line. What Julie Tareynal, a vacationer from Spain, posted on IMDB.com says it perfectly: “The Botoxed women is a rather depressing affair.” Don’t let the comedy genre fool you. English’s “The Women” captures the worst aspects of our gender and tries to paint over it with a clown face and perfume. The next time a film budget this big goes toward a remake, they might want to think about putting more of it towards a good writer.