Review of The First Wives Club (1996) by Calum B — 13 Oct 2012

Well, this was an entertaining movie, but it did not really stand out. The movie started off slowly and seemed to end in a whimper. The main characters came out on top, and the men that they were trying to manipulate were successfully manipulated. This is not an original movie as I had seen it all before in She-Devil. The only difference was that it dealt with three women instead of one.

The basic premise is that four women graduated from college together full of idealism. Later in life their idealism is destroyed as their respective husbands walk out on them - and each of them handle it in a different way. One destroys herself with alcohol, another constantly complains and tries to hang onto her son, while another remains oblivious to the fact that anything is wrong. The forth one throws herself off of a building and it is this event that draws them all back together. They realise that they had given their respective husbands the best years of their life, and this has been discarded by them, so they decide to get back at their husbands and destroy them. Basically it becomes a similar plot to that of She-Devil.

There is nothing that really stands out in this movie that I really wish to discuss. It looks at the frustration that women face in divorce, and though this may be a rare case, women can be just as vicious in divorce proceedings as can men. If we look at Liar Liar, we see a woman milking the man for all that she can get - while here the men have used the women and thrown them away. I agree that men can be bastards, but so can everybody.

I guess the purpose of this movie was to try and bring us into the women's point of view - but the theme can be gender-neutral, with the exception that men (or men that I have known) will simply wallow in their misery, while women will carry on. Even then that statement is not entirely true as everybody reacts to a divorce situation differently. I was going to make a comment that it was based on a book written by a female, while the screenwriters and directors were male, meaning that the female psyche is not portrayed as well as say a film by Amy Heckerling. But this film does no such thing and is really a movie about people being thrown away and then climbing back up to the top.

In conclusion, I will say that this is not an outstanding or impressive movie, and though entertaining after the first few minutes, it is nothing that I will really talk about that much.