The Other Wife

I gave this movie quite a high rating because I rather enjoyed it. It was very, very bad in the characters, the plot lines, the direction, in pretty much everything. But the movie was one you could watch with granny or teenage offspring without feeling embarrassed. How many movies can one say that about nowadays? Now, while the characters were nearly all wooden, almost catatonic, they looked pretty enough or sinister enough, almost like a parody of TV movie-making. There were great gaps in which nothing much happened, when the stars (I use the term advisedly) seemed to have forgotten their lines or the director had perhaps popped out for a coffee (or ring his agent). Nevertheless, it was the equivalent of the endless "Schlager" (German pop songs) I used to hear (but not listen to) when I was a guest worker in 1970s West Germany. And I think, if I recall rightly, it didn't rain once throughout the whole three hours of the movie! What's not to like about such a nice, fluffy puppy of a movie that just wants its tummy tickled?

This is a really bad movie, but it's so bad it's fun and good for doing "stuff".

There are the prerequisite spoiled children,of all ages. The young boy is the one that could have been seen less of and it would have been easier on us. There's nothing like a precocious child to drag down a movie.

This is a two parter and this review is based on the first part. I'll watch part two just to see how this plays out. But I think I know.

Sadly, as other reviewers have said, the acting is flat from everyone - even Rupert Evertts.

So, if you need to do the dishes or do some work on the computer, this is the very mini-series to do it to. You won't miss you and can easily catch upon what's happening in a New York second.

If you are looking for a deep intellectual, well-acted show - skip it.

While the storyline held promise, the director moved at such a slow pace that it was almost painful. The acting was beyond terrible...just godawful. It's obvious Rupert Everett phoned it in and John Hannah collected his paycheck for his few days & ran. I feel bad...but the poor child who played the son was cute but not enough to pull off having no tangible talent. The women...Wife #1 was so unemotional. Same reaction to finding out about a lying cheating husband to flirting with him before he left to painful convos with her daughters. Wife #2 must have taught the actor playing her son how to act. I'm sure she has many talents, but acting isn't one of them. As for the daughters, I can't really tell if they were trying too hard or are just that bad at acting.

This is an excruciatingly boring 2 episode movie with very pretty scenery and locales and bad acting. Perhaps I should cut them some slack - maybe the screenplay/dialogue was a collaboration written by the 9th grade creative writing class of 2010. Rupert Everett, however, presumably could have risen above his portrayal of a cartoonish stoop shouldered Snidely Whiplash. Horrendous performance. He has forever tainted himself.

Rosamund Pilcher is an entertaining author and I hope she did not live to see this rendition of her book. I struggled through it on 4 separate occasions, just to get through it for Rosamund. In the first episode, I longed for the plane crash. Just SOMETHING interesting. And it wasn't. Going forward, I longed for the stiff and awkward ballet scenes to end quickly. They didn't. Terrible, very predictable movie.

Series should have been cut to one episode If the cliches and plot twists that weren't needed were cut it would be a cleaner plot with a tight 90 minutes of run time. Of course the overdone music is too much also. So much of the acting is either over the top or completely flat. Clean up all the plot/ script/setting goofs of which there are many would have helped also. Of course the question remains on how so many people are clueless over so many thing and make so many bad decisions.

It is kinda sad. The basic story had promise but was destroyed by a bad director and producers that tried to turn it into something it isn't.

With fast forward to turn it into one hour of total run time it was sort of fun.