too clever by half but has some good moments

Buddy-51

An odd but strangely compelling indie comedy, "Women in Trouble" does just what the title suggests; it puts an assortment of lovely ladies into humorously dire predicaments. Two women, Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights") and the newly pregnant porn star Elektra (Carla Gogina), are stuck together in a stalled elevator; Adrianne Palicki (also of "Friday Night Lights") and Emmanuelle Chrichi are sex workers who witness a crime and have to run to safety; Sarah Clarke ("24") is a therapist whose husband ("The Mentalist"'s Simon Baker) is having an affair with one of her patients; and Marley Shelton is an engaged stewardess who's unfortunate enough to have the rock star (Josh Brolin) who's performing sex on her in the airplane bathroom die when the plane hits turbulence. The story lines, which seem disparate at first glance, do manage to dovetail into one another by movie's end.

As written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, the situations are played for both humor and sentiment, as we get to see just some of the absurd things women are forced to go through on a daily basis. And in each case, it seems, the women who are "in trouble" are aided by other women who are in trouble, essentially leading to a special bond of womanhood that helps get them through tough times. The dialogue is generally sharp and witty without ever becoming denigrating or smart-alecky, and the situations the women find themselves in are just absurd enough to keep them from becoming soap-operatic but realistic enough to make us care.

As with most movies that engage in multiple plot lines, some of the stories and some of the scenes are better than others, and, honestly, the film might have benefited from a little less cleverness and a little more focus overall. Still, it has its moments.

score 6/10

Buddy-51 17 February 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2386801/