The Other Woman

As the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That turns out to be the case when Kate (Leslie Mann) discovers that her husband Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has been cheating on her with the younger Carly (Cameron Diaz) who is also none the wiser that the man she’s been seeing is married. Rather than being angry at each other, however, the two form an unlikely friendship and direct their hatred towards Mark and begin plotting their revenge.

The Other Woman isn’t your typical romantic comedy as it’s more about the bonds formed between these women as opposed to the genre’s standard love affair. Leslie Mann leads the film and when I say leads I mean she carries the entire film on her own shoulders and then some. She’s absolutely hilarious in all her deliveries and has a personality that the other characters simply can’t match.

Cameron Diaz plays Carly, a smart and sexy lawyer who’s wounded when it comes to relationships and can never seem to find the right match. Her character’s the constant buzzkill of the film and always seems to have a permanent scowl on her face. The first half of the film is essentially her and Mann bickering back and forth deciding whether or not they should get revenge on Mark. It’s funny the first few encounters but then delves into a repetitive droll. The Other Woman has plenty of these moments where they focus on a joke for way longer than necessary, like when Carly is trying to usher a drunken Kate into a waiting taxi.

About halfway into the film we’re introduced to another one of Mark’s mistresses, the even younger and even sexier Amber, played by model Kate Upton, whose job is to basically run around in bikinis and other skimpy clothes. Basically, she’s in the film to look good. As they say, they’re “the lawyer, the wife, and the boobs.”

It’s actually a good summary of The Other Woman. It’s a fairly simply, fairly mediocre comedy that excels only because of Leslie Mann, who has proven that she can be hilarious no matter what the situation is. The film would have been completely incompetent if it weren’t for her. There are some laughs to be had, just don’t expect anything sensational.