Needed less talk, any action.

MBunge

There's a lot to like about this movie, but by the end it left me exhausted and more than a little bored…and not just because its lack of plot left it sputtering to an anti-climactic ending. Women in Trouble repeats the same narrative dynamic over and over and over again until it has wrung every bit of dramatic juice out, leaving behind a dry and twisted up story that desperately needs a jolt of something to keep the viewer engaged.

The film is about what happens in the interconnected lives of a group of women on a single day. Unfortunately, while 10 different women and 1 girl are spotlighted, only three of them actually have a story to tell. Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) is a porn star who finds out she's pregnant and doesn't know if she should keep it or even tell the father. Doris (Connie Britton) is a woman feuding with her sister and keeping a secret about her niece. She gets stuck in a hot elevator with Elektra. Maxine is a therapist who discovers that her husband is having an affair with Doris' sister. While other women are focused on equally, they're really just filler or playing a part in the lives of Elektra, Doris and Maxine.

The good about Women in Trouble is there are several women who parade around in relatively little clothing and there's some nice acting on display. Most of the characters, even the ultimately unimportant ones, are given long and meaty stretches of dialog to chew their way through. There's also some salty language, but that comes off like a cross between Sex and the City and the Jersey Shore. If you're a fan of pretty and talented actress getting a chance to shine, you'll find a lot of that to enjoy here.

Unfortunately, almost every single scene in this movie boils down to the same thing. It's two people sitting on their butts while they talk and talk and talk and talk. This thing is so wordy it would even make Kevin Smith yell "Shut up already!" at the screen. This script could be performed on the radio and almost nothing would be missed. Instead of a motion picture, writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez has made a static picture. While all that stationary emoting is fun to look at for a while, there comes a point where you want the characters to do a cartwheel, dance a jig, pick a fight or just move in some way. And after seeing the same two-person dynamic play out for the 5th or 6th time, you start asking "What else is there?" only to find there isn't anything else here.

Women in Trouble doesn't feel like a single story. It feels like watching an audition reel where a series of actresses are doing a bunch of random screen tests, hoping they can catch some studio executive's eye. Some of them are eye-catching but it's just hard to get through them all in one sitting.

If you don't care about plot and do like ogling attractive women, you'll have a good time with this movie. For the rest of us, Women in Trouble is an equally entertaining and grueling experience.

score 4/10

MBunge 23 May 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2432637/