In a sense, The Other Woman is not a bad film. The main female trio are likable to a degree (though I fail to remember any of their names) and the flow of pacing feels relatively swift for a near 2 hour film; even the completely bland romance (of which the director gave all of 2 minutes for development) is somewhat forgivable since it takes up little time in favor of the film’s comedic focus…which leads to my main issue with the film. The problem here is The Other Woman’s supposed to be a romance–comedy; I've already established there’s little effort on the romance, but what I haven’t mentioned is how a near 2 hour comedy (which was indeed its main focus) failed to make me laugh even once!
Well, I guess that’s a little too harsh on the film; technically it did get a few smirks out of me (more so during the second half with the women’s revenge scheme), but that’s about it. For the most part it was me sitting on a couch with a stoic look on my face; viewing “hilarious” jokes such as a dog pooping indoors and the wife screaming about…pretty much everything (apparently the director believes the louder someone is, the funnier they’ll seem). Yet bizarre as it sounds, The Other Woman wasn't an awful experience to watch. I found the film’s premise (a wife continuously befriends women her husband’s been cheating with, eventually forming a posse for which to get revenge) to be strangely entertaining even with its failed attempt at humor. There’s also time and effort spent on the wife and the consequences of having someone close (aka her husband) lie and betray so effortlessly. The wife’s reaction isn't: “Oh my husband’s cheating on me? Let’s get revenge!” instead it’s: “My husband’s cheating on me!? What do I do? Who should I tell? Should I forgive him? I’ll never forgive him; revenge time! Wait, he’s the man I love and married; maybe he’ll get better…maybe he won’t; maybe it’s time to let him go.”
There’s a wide array of emotions presented that all work in conveying the wife’s difficult and traumatic situation; which is impressive for a zany “comedy.” There’s also nothing I necessarily hate about The Other Woman, in fact I understand how viewers could enjoy it; yet while I like to give credit where credit is due, the film’s still without its basic elements. The Other Woman is a romance-comedy that brought me neither love nor laughter; and when your film fails at its most general concepts, then it’s likely time to go back to the storyboard.
