Indie Film Spotlight - The Other Woman (2009)

Film: The Other Woman
Released : 2009
Director/Writer: Don Roos
Starring: Natalie Portman, Scott Cohen, Lisa Kudrow, Charlie Tahan
Short Summary: Emilia falls in love with her married boss. Which leads to his subsequent divorce and remarriage. All is not fun and games when Emilia finds herself struggling with her relationship her step son, the ex-wife, and her new husband after the death of her baby.

My Thoughts

I watched The Other Woman not long ago, and it intrigues me. It intrigues me because though it is not the new movie love of my life there were several things the I liked about it.

First of all I enjoyed that story shifted from what was going on in the present to flashbacks. I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of the flashback scenes and the scenes in the present. The flashbacks show you perhaps more joyful excited by life characters. The present is full of emotional turmoil that life sometimes hands people, or they sometimes hand themselves with their choices.

I like how this movie handles character choices in this film with a high level of realism. The characters are flawed people that occasionally make bad choices based on emotion. Sometimes those choices cause the people in their lives to react and behave badly. However, that doesn't mean that any of those people are bad people. There are no heroes or villains in this movie. Sometimes people make mistakes. All of us have our annoying qualities. I think this film does a good job of showing us a variety of characters with a normal balance of good and bad qualities. That makes them human to the audience. While you might not agree with everything that they do you understand where those actions are coming from. You could easily put the characters in the types of home wrecker, adulterous husband, annoying ex-wife, and annoying step-son, but the movie doesn't let you make them that one dimensional. I think it's great that movie also doesn't let the relationships between these characters be one dimensional either. Sometimes loving people is hard work and this movie shows us that element of love.

The film has pretty good pacing for a slice of life type movie. That means the editing is very much on point. The film features some lovely cinematography. I highly admire the emotional depth of the actors. I loved how all the actors approached their characters in this film. Even Lisa Kudrow. I usually don't like her in the acting department, but this movie showed me that she can play really layered characters if given the opportunity.

Overall this the story of The Other Woman kept me interested through out the film. I probably wouldn't watch it over and over. It isn't one of my favorite films. However, I'm glad that I watched it at least once. It's is a great way to study the craft of creating realistic layered characters. The film made me interested to read the book it is based on Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman. It's always good when a movie adaptation makes me want to read the book.