CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Tomas Maly I have to say that I really don't understand where any of the other reviews are coming from. Everyone is way off. I got the impression from the reviews that Natalie Portman's character was a bad person. But she (and the stepson) were the only likable characters. She may have made a few mistakes with the stepson, but where anyone got the idea (especially the idiotic husband/father) that she somehow wanted to harm the stepson, it's really uncalled for and disturbing to watch. So she made a mistake about feeding him dairy when he was lactose intolerant - she thought the ex-wife was being an overprotective witch and tried calling out on that matter. So she let the boy ice skate without a helmet. He had a thick hat on and he had fun, didn't get hurt, and they actually bonded. The attacks on her quality of step-parenting is way out of line.I don't understand how anyone could think she was vicious to people because of losing her baby. Maybe Natalie Portman played the character differently than in the original novel. Maybe the script was translated poorly. I just didn't get the feeling that she was a bad person at all, nor did I get the feeling that she was lashing out at anyone unjustifiably or that she was projecting her grief onto others through rage. She wasn't at all. I would characterize this movie as thorny, but things start to clean up near the end. I was expecting a downward spiral toward devastation based on the reviews and that didn't happen. Things didn't magically turn wonderful but things did start to turn around for the better. The times that Natalie Portman's character lashed out at others was justified at the other person's poor behavior. She got angry at her stepson when he kept forcing the idea of selling the deceased baby's possessions on eBay. I can understand that, it's insensitive for him to say. She also lashed out at her own father for his infidelity in the past, and that, too, was justified. He cheated on his wife (her mom), and nobody had actually shown any anger at him until then. How anyone could say that she has no right to be angry at her father is beyond me - her mom was hurt, and children can take on that pain as their own, to be protective.She was a decent stepmom and I don't see how anyone could say she and her stepson had a difficult relationship. That was entirely a projection of the ex-wife's viciousness onto her, through the son. It made her seem like a neglectful stepmom, but she was a good one as far as I'm concerned. The ex-wife was just vicious, beyond bitter. Apparently the young new wife broke up the marriage but my impression was that the marriage was already over with. As the movie progresses, the step son starts showing empathy toward the stepmom and deceased baby sister and so he starts developing a more likable character. The husband really is just cold and never really actually shows empathy or care toward the wife. He never really sides with her and finds every opportunity to side against her. He's of course dealing with the viciousness of his ex-wife, but he doesn't stand up for his new wife nearly as much as he could/should, and projects some of that negativity onto Natalie Portman's character. He is soon to reject her and let the marriage fall apart than actually be forgiving toward her struggles. There is a certain bias that he seems to have that she is worth discarding and a difficult woman to deal with, but I really don't see how that is justified. The only love that I could see in this movie ended up being between the boy and his stepmom. Everyone else was just so cold. Maybe that's just bad acting, bad script, I dunno.In the end, the boy overhears her worries that she somehow smothered her baby, and he asks his mom (the ex-wife), who happens to be a doctor, about the matter, and the ex-wife patches up the bridge by investigating the matter to reassure her that the baby did die of natural causes.This movie reminded me of the film "A Serious Man" by the Coen brothers, that had a very distinct Jewish cynical theme of the victim being blamed for the tragedy itself, when everyone else around them is the problem. I don't know if this is a theme in Jewish culture, but it's a bit disturbing.The movie is definitely a bit thorny, and character behavior does seem out of place or projected incorrectly. Maybe on purpose, maybe a certain Jewish cynicism, maybe just a messy script-from-book to work with. Like A Serious Man, it may not be something you can watch more than once, because it may just be too emotionally difficult/tumultuous.

secondtake The Other Woman (2009)You might put up with this glaringly mediocre film by seeing how it deals with things that matter to ordinary people. Ordinary very rich people. It's about relationships, about wanting a child and having that go wrong, about taking care of someone else's child. It's about cheating and being in love and falling out of love. I mean, it's all good stuff.But the writing is routine to the point of deadening. The filming (photography) is either routine or it strives in little ways to be "interesting" by moving or gliding, but for no real reason except to keep it from being static. The acting is solid but unexceptional, including the main performance by a good Natalie Portman. The music is saccharine, at least against the backdrop of these events, as if trying to inflate them.Yes, this is an annoying movie if you pay attention to how it is made. If you are just watching for what happens, it's fine, but frankly just a bit boring. And besides Portman, the main star is, in some ways, the boy who is shuttled between parents and stepparents, and he's weirdly unsympathetic (on purpose). There are little moments that are meant to be intensely personal, and yet they seem like they're "meant" to do that. It doesn't emerge from events, or from character.Ugh. I know many people will see this and like a lot of it. Good! It's not on the surface too bad, I know that. But the more I watched the more it got under my skin like lice.

rapbuddha This is a really bad movie starring decent actors and nice shots of new york but with a laughable script and characters who although really obnoxious, i cant say that they are totally unrealistic-i am a lawyer in Piraeus, Greece and most people i know-Greek ''petit bourgeois''- are cynical, boring and fake just like the film characters- i often wonder if people in second rate cheesy Hollywood films like this one act the way people in real life behave or if it is the other way around, if people in small and globally unimportant countries like the one i have the misfortune to live in, currently struck by a sudden wave of huge unemployment,try to act like actors in US films so they can cope with business and social life situations and achieve the American-global dream egg finishing studies only as a means to getting married to a 50 year old fart -who exploits all the other young lawyers that didn't get laid with him, by underpaying them to do all his work- with a big house, a big car, lots of money, problems solved. However, the dialogs are more ridiculous than plan 9 from outer space, Natalie port man is way overrated both as a serious actress and a sex symbol, her aging face not being cute anymore and her average skinny short body very mildly desirable. Btw, she tends to act in a neurotic way in almost every film she stars in, even in comedies, shes hyperactive and screams a lot. I wonder if shes on coke or a crazy person in real life as well. She always impersonates lawyers, doctors, professors etc, women with a ''strong personality'', that is aggressive ball breakers with money and/or prestigious jobs to back their psycho and rude behavior towards mankind. I imagine that this could easily be the true personality of a Hollywood diva who also has a prestigious university degree. Despite what another commenter has written, the movie Doesn't show the viewer where it leads to until the end when you finally realize it was about the stepmother-stepson relationship. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, when Natalie was screaming(the way she did in the rest of the movie as well, for the most part), my stomach ached and i had a fleeting thought that i watched the black swan 2, a thriller in which the former ballet dancer would take her revenge on men by marrying them and then cutting their penis and murdering their only child, something like De pal mas Carrie but with female lawyers and not high school students in it. The only plus of the movie is the child actor. Don't know him, hadn't seen him before, but he was the only decent actor in this mess of a movie, supporting the ridiculous lines he had to speak out the way a top notch experienced actor would. Then, after laughing through the entire movie, comes the monologue of the child actor about death in Buddhism and the possibility of meeting someone dear to you that died again in the form of another person and the close up to his facial expressions and with it a great surprise, i actually cried. Its an extremely powerful scene and GREAT acting by the kid, even the interaction with Portman really works out in this scene. Its the only scene the kid STARS and not co-stars in and its the only scene that is worthwhile and then some.It was a shock to me that a movie i totally rejected from the start touched me so heavily for a few minutes-i don't cry that easily, for real! :p If not for the last 5 minutes, i would call this movie a chaotic disaster and rate it MINUS one(monstrously extremely awful). Watch out for the kid. Given a little luck, he might turn out a very gifted and successful actor within the next ten years!

Desertman84 The Other Woman,whose original title is Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, is a drama feature that stars Natalie Portman,Lisa Kudrow,Lauren Ambrose and Scott Cohen.The movie is about about life, loss, and family.It is written and directed by Don Roos.The plot is about Emilia,who is a Harvard law school graduate and a newlywed, having just married Jack,a high-powered New York lawyer that was her boss and previously married when she began working at his law firm. Unfortunately, her life takes an unexpected turn when Jack and Emilia lose their newborn daughter. Emilia struggles through her grief to connect with her new stepson William, while also trying to overcome a long-standing rift in her relationship with her father caused by his own infidelity. But perhaps the most difficult obstacle of all for Emilia is trying to cope with the constant interference of her husband's angry, jealous ex-wife, Carolyn. Ultimately, Emilia's and Charlie's playful and sometimes tender exchanges help Emilia to open her heart and later on,she begins to realize that she wasn't responsible for her baby's death and she begins to take new things into perspective as she rediscover her own capacity for love in time.The movie is a big challenge for Natalie Portman as she portrays both the protagonist and the antagonist at the same time.Although I find her role in a gray area,she did decent in responding into the role BUT not enough to call it a great work of hers just like she did in Black Swan. As for the story is concerned,one can either be have pity or be angry with Emilia.Although we see her character develop over the course of the film,viewers may have different opinions in the so-called "other woman". Overall,it was a good film that can help us understand what women go through in life especially when presented in the same situation as Emilia.