The Other Woman Tops US Box Office, So Can We Call It The New Bridesmaids?
Despite the critics being less than enamoured with The Other Woman, this weekend it stormed the US box office even managing to topple the mighty Captain America: The Winter Solider. So far the female driven comedy has, unsurprisingly, drawn both favourable and unfavourable comparisons with 2011’s breakout hit Bridesmaids. So can we start calling The Other Woman the new Bridesmaids?
The Other Woman, follows three women who form an unlikely bond after finding out they’ve all been wronged by the same man, Leslie Mann stars as Kate, a wife who finds out her husband has been cheating with Cameron Diaz, a high flying lawyer. The two ladies then discover that the lothario, named Mike, also has _anothe_r woman on the go, twenty something Amber played by Kate Upton. Instead of being mad at each other the three women decide to team up and channel their anger by seeking revenge on the serial cheater.
Read our review of The Other Woman
Like Bridesmaids, The Other Woman boast a strong female cast and pushes the male characters very much into the background. It was for that very reason that the success of Bridesmaids took a lot of people by surprise in 2011. Bridesmaids was funny and sometimes out right gross and audiences enjoyed the fact that for once, it was women delivering the laughs and also writing the script. The movie, written by Annie Mumolo and Kirsten Wig (who also took the lead role), ended its box office run having grossed over $288 million worldwide making it producer Judd Apatow’s most successful film to date.
Read our Bridesmaids review from 2011
Whilst The Other Woman certainly follows on from the precedent set by Bridesmaids, that women can use the exact same humour as men, critics have reacted to the two films very differently. Although audiences seem to be equally responsive, the critical reception to The Other Woman has been vastly less positive than the one Bridesmaids enjoyed three years earlier. Bridesmaids is considered critically acclaimed and holds a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s described as funny, warm and containing well written characters and enough clever gags to make it stand out. In contrast, The Other Woman, whose rating currently stands at a rotten 26%, is labeled as predictable and full of cheap gags. As Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times, The Other Woman is “dumb, lazy, clumsily assembled and unoriginal.”
Next page: So, can we call it the new Bridesmaids?
Despite the detractors, if its opening weekend is anything to go by The Other Woman could end up equalling the success of Bridesmaids at the box office. Does that mean The Other Woman is the new _Bridesmaid_s? In a word, no, really it’s just not good enough. But one thing that we can take from The Other Woman’s success is that there definitely is a market for female led comedies and Bridesmaids was definitely not a one off. Bridesmaids drew light on the fact that the female movie going audience is ready for more comedies which speak to them specifically, it broke new ground in the market but now something even more original needs to come along after to further boost the genre. The Other Woman is not that movie, it simply doesn't bring enough originality to the table. That said whatever the critical opinion is it’s clear what we need is more comedies led by women, but what would be even better is if we made them a bit smarter.
Read more: The Other Woman's negative critical reaction
Watch the trailer for The Other Woman here:
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