The Other Woman

♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Carly (Cameron Diaz) has found the perfect man in Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Eight weeks into dating and he already wants to meet her family. He is sweet, charming, and remembers their anniversary. There is one catch, though: He is married, and she does not get to know until she decides to surprise him one day in his house, but instead meets his wife Kate (Leslie Mann) who answers the door. Clueless and a little bit slow, Kate latches on to Carly after confirming his husband's affair and the two end up forming a rather strange bond, becoming the “weirdest friends” ever. Soon enough they find Amber (Kate Upton), another girl Mark is seeing. Instead of resorting in a three-way battle royal which is what usually ensues once players are exposed, the trio forms an alliance to bring the cheater down, using his own dirty tricks against him.

The movie just defies logic and does so a billion times that you just let it slip and go along with the premise, the movie being hilarious anyway. The film works primarily because of Mann and how she is unafraid to go all-out when it comes to self-deprecatory humor, going the extra mile when the other two girls simply won’t. The downside is that the character gets reduced to a caricature, but a rather funny one at that.

Upton’s role does not require much and Diaz’s character kind of summarizes it with her line, “the wife, the lawyer, and the boobs.” Amber is the epitome of the dumb blonde in this movie; an adorable dumb blonde who manages to eventually get even with the help of her girlfriends. As such, the joke is not really on her.

Diaz gets the boring role but this does not mean that she does not get to have fun as well. While Carly is serious and calculating most of the time, she does have some moments of comedic brilliance thanks in part to Diaz’s good timing. After all, she is the central character in this movie; the queen bee with a revenge plot to accomplish.

This is one of those movies that you would not mind watching online or on cable on a lazy weekend. The plot development is predictable, but at least the movie still gets to elicit some serious laughs thanks to the oddities and weird scenarios presented along the way. This probably explains the good box office legs it had during its run despite the glaring negative reviews and universal panning it got from most critics.

If such brand of humor does not sit well with you, then the director made sure that either Kate Upton or the Bahamas would.