The Other Woman
This post contains spoilers for the 2014 movie The Other Woman.
So from the beginning, today’s entry is pretty different. This is what critics and movie analysts would probably brand as a revenge comedy. Basically, a woman finds out her new boyfriend is married, and she and his wife meet and vow to bring this cheating scum to his knees. Along the way, of course, they become friends and learn from each other and also make friends with another victim of his gross scheme.
This movie is fun and funny and has a bunch of very interesting and dynamic characters. Although the plot and action of the film are based around them getting back at a man for treating them badly, there are so many lovely moments of shared joy and fun between the women in this movie. They try on each other’s clothes and hang out at the beach and drink together and just have friendships. Normal female friendships. No pillow fights in skimpy pyjamas or weird fetishised kissing scenes between friends (looking at you John Tucker Must Die) in this movie. Just support and love and lifting each other up.
This scene in particular is a beautiful moment of friendship between the three. Kate, the wife, is ready to finally let go of her marriage and her life as she knows it, and we see her throw her ring into the ocean while Carly, the ‘mistress’ (this word is used very much as a joke throughout the movie), watches on. Carly joins her on the beach and Amber, the other slighted member of their little support group, shows up to hug it out. It’s simple but it’s beautiful because the focus is solely on the women and their experiences and emotions.
Through the different characters, this movie explores the way different people deal with heartbreak. One of the things I love about it the most is the no-judgement representation of how heartbreak affects people. Carly finds out first, and she shuts down. She stops answering calls from the man in question and tries to get on with her life. She is upset but doesn’t have time to wallow. Kate has a panic attack and continues freaking out over the duration of the movie. She gets pulled back in again and again, not wanting to let go of her marriage and her life. We see her take two steps forward and one step back many times in the movie. Amber feels horribly guilty and sad but is able to move on quickly (and for once, she’s not judged for doing so!!!!). They are wildly different women but this movie actually sends the message for once that they’re all valid.
One of the other things about this movie that I love is the portrayal of these women’s vocations. Kate is a house wife. She is a partner in her husband’s business affairs in legal terms but she knows nothing about what he’s doing because she’s happy to just be at home and again, she’s not judged for this. It’s a decision she made for herself. She does go through changes throughout the movie and begins to realise that she has the ingenuity and capability to take over her husband’s businesses, and it’s something she wants to do now. But wanting to be a house wife beforehand wasn’t something she was ever put down for.
Carly on the other hand is a successful and ambitious corporate lawyer who has decided to spend her early adult years focusing on her career rather than relationships or starting a family. Again, she isn’t judged for this choice, it’s just a fact. She does decide to start a family at the end of the movie however, and it’s depicted as her choice and not maligned in any way. Amber is just looking for love, and though she is young and beautiful and has big boobs, she’s far from shallow. She happily settles with a man much older than her, not because he is rich or a silver fox or a sugar daddy but because they have a lot of common interests and get along well and she falls in love with him.
Let’s talk about the male gaze. It’s gonna come up a lot this month, I guarantee it. It’s almost non-existent in this movie. The women all wear fabulous outfits that I could not stop talking about through the whole movie as I watched, and some of those outfits include short skirts, low cut necklines and backless dresses. But never do the camera angles or focus points dwell on how these women’s bodies look in these outfits. They’re just wearing clothes, because that’s what humans do. Again, they all have wildly different styles and all are shown as valid and cute in their own ways. Carly never tears Kate down for wearing casual clothes or not having flawless hair and makeup all the time, and nobody says Amber’s a slut just because she wears short shorts and has her tits out.
The one exception to this rule about the male gaze is when Carly and Kate first spot Amber. She is on the beach in a minimalist white bikini, splashing through the ocean waves and running down the beach, bouncing up and down à la Baywatch. Yes, this scene is filmed to focus on her ass, her boobs, her long legs, every inch of skin that’s uncovered. They want you to be titillated.
But even this is different. We don’t see any men watching or appreciating her form, and it’s not them looking that we’re supposed to notice. It’s actually the opposite. Carly and Kate are staring at her through binoculars and freaking out about how perfect her body is. She’s ‘a perfect 10’, Carly points out. It’s a subversion of how media, like Baywatch, have always shown these kinds of scenes. The men turn their heads, they drool, their eyes pop out of their heads (figuratively or not, depending on whether it’s animated), they look. But here is this scene showing how ridiculous this trope is as Amber runs down the beach in slow motion and Carly and Kate lose their minds over her unrealistically ‘perfect’ body. It’s a satire of the way men are so often shown observing women’s bodies. And it is directly contrasted by the fact that they meet Amber immediately afterwards, and she is sweet and apologetic and horrified at having been drawn into this man’s scheme. In other words, she is objectified to a make point, and then immediately humanised. This movie scoffs in the face of the male gaze.
The final confrontation scene in the movie culminates in the above scene where the man they’re all trying to get back at throws an absolute tantrum. The thing about this scene is that his freak out is totally irrational and, dare I say, hysterical. Again, this movie pokes at old and tired tropes of women acting in irrational ways, because of ‘hormones’ or ‘that time of the month’ or simply because ‘women, am I right?’ *cue laugh track* Subversion is this movie’s favourite tool and I think it uses that tool extremely well, especially for a comedy about a bunch of women getting revenge on a guy who cheated on them. Sometimes that’s hard to believe when you consider this is also a movie with a classic ‘shitting his brains out’ scene, complete with fart symphony and all.
This movie, while a silly comedy that’s meant to be fun over anything else, does such an amazing job at representing women. We are diverse and different but we are all valid, and our friendships with each other are some of the most important and dynamic aspects of our lives. Our lives don’t revolve around men, even when they might be part of a lot of what we do. We exist outside of them and we have our own needs and desires. The Other Woman does a beautiful job of showing that reality, despite its classification as a simple ‘revenge comedy’. This film, plainly put, is a love letter to female friendships built on shared experiences, and it rings true at every moment till the credits roll.
The Other Woman is available to stream in Australia and the UK on Disney+ through their new Star add-on (included in the initial price, just requires setting up a pin code to access the higher rated programs up to R18+). It is available to buy or rent everywhere on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play and YouTube. Unfortunately it’s unavailable for streaming anywhere in the US currently.
