The Other Woman (2014 film)


The Other Woman is a 2014 American comedy film directed by Nick Cassavetes and written by Melissa Stack. The film stars Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann and Kate Upton. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Nicki Minaj and Taylor Kinney appear in supporting roles. The film follows three womenCarly, Kate, and Amber who are all romantically involved with the same man, Mark. After finding out about each other, the trio take revenge on Mark.
Development of The Other Woman began in January 2012, when 20th Century Fox hired Stack to write the script, based on the original idea from 1996 comedy The First Wives Club. Casting was done between November 2012 and June 2013. Filming began on April 29, 2013, in locations including Manhattan, Long Island, The Hamptons, Dockers Waterside Restaurant on Dune Road in Quogue, and The Bahamas, and it concluded on August 27 that year. Aaron Zigman composed the score and LBI Productions produced the film. The film was released on April 25, 2014, in the United States, and distributed worldwide by 20th Century Fox.

Plot

Carly Whitten, a New York attorney, has started a relationship with Mark King, a man she's been having sex with for eight weeks. Carly, planning to introduce Mark to her father, Frank, is upset that Mark has to go out of town on account of a flood at his Connecticut home, missing their dinner. However, she decides to go to his house to seduce him instead. She is horrified to meet Mark's wife, Kate, whom she'd originally assumed to be Mark's housekeeper. While initially hostile, both of the women befriend each other. Kate then discovers that he is still seeing another woman, who she thinks is Carly secretly continuing her previous relationship with Mark. After another fight, they discover together that Mark is seeing a third woman.
Carly and Kate follow Mark and travel to The Hamptons, where they stay at the house of Kate's brother, Phil. The duo spies on Mark and find him with his mistress, Amber on the beach, and when Mark leaves for the gym the two women inform her that Mark has been cheating on all of them.
All three women decide to take revenge on him together. Kate spikes his smoothies with estrogen pills to swell his nipples; has their dog lick his toothbrush before soaking it in their toilet; and adds hair-removal cream into his shampoo. Carly spikes his water with a laxative to cause him to defecate heavy diarrhea. Amber uses an ugly drag queen sexual partner against him.
In the course of carrying out the women's vicious pranks, they also discover that Mark has been embezzling money from various startup companies that his workplace helps develop. Meanwhile, Carly begins to connect romantically and feel a bond with Phil. The women's camaraderie begins to fall apart when Kate finds herself still in love with Mark after sleeping with him again. Carly exposes Mark's fraud before texting him, upsetting Kate and Amber.
Later Mark goes to the Bahamas on a supposed business trip, and Kate decides to follow and expose him. When she arrives she is surprised to find Carly and Amber at the airport, who explain that Mark has been using Kate as the owner of the companies he defrauded from, which would—were his fraud to be discovered—result in Kate and Mark going to prison. Kate also finds out that Mark has been seeing yet another woman, someone he has met on this trip. This, and the possibility of her facing prison, motivates her to take action, with the help of Carly's legal expertise. In addition, Amber confides to Carly that she is seeing someone else as well.
When Mark returns from vacation, he visits Carly at her office. He is then locked in a conference room by her assistant and friend, Lydia, and is stunned to see all three women sitting in there together. They proceed to confront him with his infidelities and embezzlement. With Carly as her attorney, Kate presents divorce papers and a list of their assets. She reveals how she, as a CEO, has returned all of Mark's embezzled money to the companies he had robbed from, which saves both of them from prison time but leaves him bankrupt, much to his shock and hysterical outrage. Mark's former business partner, Nick, then arrives and acknowledges Kate's work while firing him.
The three women all applaud each other, as Mark excuses himself from them, fuming. With his furious anger and rush to leave, he smashes into an empty glass room, which drastically cuts himself while rips his coat. Afterwards, he then finds his car being towed away before also receiving a departing punch in the face from Frank.
In the film's epilogue, Kate takes over Mark's previous job with Nick and is a CEO of several successful companies, making big profits under her honest leadership. Carly and Phil fall in love, and the couple are expecting a child. Amber and Frank are now a couple and are traveling the world together.

Cast

Development

On January 16, 2012, it was announced that 2007 Black Listed screenwriter Melissa Stack was hired by 20th Century Fox to write an untitled female revenge comedy, which Julie Yorn would produce through LBI Productions. The film's script was described as the original idea from the 1996 film The First Wives Club, but with younger leads. The film's title was revealed to be The Other Woman on November 13. In January of the following year, Nick Cassavetes signed on to direct the film.

Casting

In November 2012, Cameron Diaz was in talks for the lead role. Diaz's representative also revealed that actress Kristen Wiig was under consideration for the wife role. In March 2013, Leslie Mann and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau were in talks to join the film, and Diaz was confirmed for her role. The following month, Kate Upton, Taylor Kinney, and Nicki Minaj, in her feature film debut, joined the film. Don Johnson was cast in June as Diaz's character's father.

Filming

In March 2013, the shooting was set to begin late-spring or early summer 2013 in New York City. Later it was told that the production would begin in May 2013. Principal photography began on April 29, 2013, and filming was completed by August 27, 2013. Much of the filming took place in parts of New York, including Long Island, The Hamptons, and Westhampton Beach. From July 18–23, filming took place in New Providence, where Nassau, The Bahamas was used as the filming location. The Atlantis Paradise Island was also used as the shooting location. Isola Trattoria and Crudo Bar at Mondrian Hotel in SoHo, Manhattan was used for the scene in which the women met for a celebration toast at the end of the film.

Music

The Other Womans music was composed by Aaron Zigman, who was reportedly set to score the film on May 31, 2013. The film featured songs from various artists including Etta James, Ester Dean, Morcheeba, Cyndi Lauper, Britt Nicole, Patty Griffin, Lorde, Keyshia Cole and Iggy Azalea.

Release

On March 31, 2014, the film had a world premiere in Amsterdam; the next day, on April 1, it had a UK premiere at the Curzon Mayfair Cinema in London. The film later had a US premiere on April 21 in Westwood, California.
On March 25, 2014, Fox appealed the R-rating, which Motion Picture Association of America gave the film for sexual references. The studio wanted a PG-13 rating. On April 9, the MPAA's rating appeals board took back the R and gave the film a PG-13; the sources confirmed that there were no changes made to get the film PG-13. The Other Woman was released on April 25 in the United States.

Box office

The Other Woman opened at number 1 in North America on April 25, 2014 in 3,205 theaters debuting atop the weekend box office with earnings of $24.7 million across the three days. The film grossed $83.9 million in the United States and Canada and $112.8 million in other territories for a total worldwide gross of $196.7 million, against a production budget of $40 million.

Home media

The Other Woman was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 29, 2014. The Blu-ray edition features the Gag Reel, "Giggle Fit", Gallery and deleted scenes. In the United States, the film has grossed $9,592,336 from DVD sales and $4,163,463 from Blu-ray sales, making a total of $13,755,799.

Reception

Critical response

, the film holds a 25% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 164 reviews with an average rating of 4.24/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Other Woman definitely boasts a talented pedigree, but all that skill is never fully brought to bear on a story that settles for cheap laughs instead of reaching its empowering potential." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 39 out of 100 based on reviews from 35 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Justin Chang of Variety said, "Beneath the wobbly pratfalls and the scatological setpieces, there's no denying the film's mean-spirited kick, or its more-than-passing interest in what makes its women tick." The Hollywood Reporter's critic Todd McCarthy said: "It would have helped if director Nick Cassavetes had something resembling a sure hand at comedy." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave the film grade C-, saying "All of a sudden, a spotted Great Dane squats in the middle of a Manhattan apartment and out plop several gleaming, glistening CGI turds. It's one of those cases where a Hollywood movie inadvertently summarizes itself in a single shot." Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "Line to line, it's fresher than any number of guy-centric "Hangover"-spawned affairs, despite director Cassavetes' lack of flair for slapstick." The Boston Globe's Ty Burr gave the film one out of four stars and said, "It's "The First Wives Club" rewritten for younger, less demanding audiences, or a "9 to 5" with absolutely nothing at stake." Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice said, "The Other Woman doesn't give these actresses much to do except look ridiculous, if not sneaky and conniving."
Michael Sragow of Orange County Register gave the film grade C, saying that the film is "a coarse, rickety comedy." Richard Corliss wrote for Time magazine that "All three women are less watchable and amusing than Nicki Minaj as Carly's legal assistant Lydia." Film critic Stephen Holden of The New York Times said that the film is "so dumb, lazy, clumsily assembled and unoriginal, it could crush any actor forced to execute its leaden slapstick gags and mouth its crude, humorless dialogue." James Berardinelli of ReelViews wondered, "Has it come to this for director Nick Cassavetes?", comparing his career negatively to that of his father, John Cassavetes. Berardinelli elaborated, "what a comedown to find him in charge of such an unfocused, unfunny, scatologically-obsessed 'comedy.'" Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.Com gave the film two out of four stars and said, "While "The Other Woman" raises some thoughtful questions about independence, identity and the importance of sisterhood, ultimately it would rather poop on them and then throw them through a window in hopes of the getting the big laugh." Wesley Morris of Grantland said, "No one knows which takes are funny and which aren't. More than once, all three women, especially poor Upton, are caught looking like they don't know what they're doing."
Bilge Ebiri of the magazine New York said, "You can't shake the feeling that in a just world, all these women – even Kate Upton – would have better material than this." Connie Ogle of The Miami Herald gave the film three out of four stars and called the film a "goofy, ridiculous, with more gross-out humor than is strictly necessary but still funny. It falls into the category of Girlfriend Films – as in, go with your girlfriends and leave your date/partner/spouse at home with the PlayStation or the NBA playoffs." Colin Covert of Star Tribune gave the film three out of four stars, saying "It's an escapist women's empowerment comedy like many others, but elevated by the simple virtue of being, for most of its length, very, very funny." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying "A movie as generic and forgettable as the sofa-size art on its characters' walls." Linda Holmes wrote for NPR, calling the film "a conceptually odious, stupid-to-the-bone enterprise..." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times advised guys to "Step away from the vehicle, because The Other Woman is out of control and intent on running down a certain kind of male."

Accolades