It may an updated version of a 1939 film, it may be directed by “Murphy Brown’s” Diane English and be fourteen years in the making, but some things never change: A cheating husband! Annette Benning is Sylvia, a sassy woman of substance who runs Cache, a top fashion magazine in New York. But she’s also the best friend of Mary (Meg Ryan.) Sylvia learns from her manicurist (Debi Mazar) that Mary’s husband is having an affair with the sexy Saks “spritzer girl” (Eva Mendes). Of course Mary doesn’t know. But that’s okay, because Sylvia makes sure their other friends, Edie (Debra Messing) and Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith) know first. All four women couldn’t be more different. Ryan’s character, Mary is a Connecticut lady who lunches and fills her calendars with committees and kids events. Messing’s Edie is a crunchy-granola artist and mom who keeps making babies, while Smith’s Alex is a novelist and lipstick lesbian. Candice Bergin (aka Murphy Brown) actually plays Ryan’s mother, Cloris Leachman is the housekeeper, and Bette Midler is a pot-smoking divorced woman, five times over. They add a nice touch to the storyline as the older and wiser types – been there and done that. The nice thing about this movie is it has the guts to tell rich wives what they’ve needed to know all along. You have to be interested in your husband to keep him, and you have to put an effort into your marriage just as much as you do your kids soccer schedules or filling up your calendars with a lot of absolutely nothing. The movie’s ending gives divorced women a great lesson on hope, and how to come out on top by ‘getting a life’ and finding themselves, instead of depending on a man, but unfortunately I can’t tell you how Ryan’s character does it, or the plot will be exposed. A smart movie that’s more about women and friendships than about affairs. Let’s hope it doesn’t take Diane English fourteen years to make her next film. Three tiaras
