We all know that a woman’s life is far from being easy. And when you’ve got a group of beautiful and talented actresses underlining that for you, it can’t be bad. "The Women" is an updating of the celebrated 1939 film directed by George Cukor, about adultery, divorce and friendship that starred Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard and Joan Fontaine.

The new film revolves around four close friends, one married with four children; one married with one child but being cheated on, one a high-profile professional woman and a lesbian. Meg Ryan and Annette Bening are the stars of the film who play Mary, whose spouse is having an affair with Crystal, the cologne queen, an interesting number played by Eva Mendes, and Sylvie, editor of a fashion magazine. They've long been best friends, but complications involving Mary's husband and Sylvie's job force them to draw apart.

Naturally, this situation becomes the hot talk amongst Mary's catty friends, especially the scandalmonger Sylvia Fowler.

“Murphy Brown” creator Diane English wanted to capture a bunch of beautiful intelligent women who live largely alone in a world of money without a general direction and a clear geographical and time location, the story seems to just hang in a generality that can never actually impress.

Apart from the previously mentioned Meg Ryan and Annette Bening, the film also stars Eva Mendes as Crystal Allen, Debra Messing as Edie Cohen and Jada Pinkett Smith as Alex Fisher, the juicy lesbian of the movie. But the characters are not very well developed. Writer Diane English, who thoroughly inspired herself from the original script written by Clare Boothe Luce, fails at creating believable and worth watching characters and instead painted portraits of contemporary women in a way too general manner. Moreover, it took English 14 years to get this project made. Given those premises, it's no wonder that English decided to use the film as her statement to the world regarding her opinion on women.

In other words the film deals with childbirth, face-lifts, sexual techniques, career women who neglect their children, teenage girls with self-image problems, men who don't believe in women, men who have trouble with successful women, friendship. So no metaphysical issues are under debate here. That’s the reason why this could be the perfect choice for a laidback Sunday evening.

The movie transmits a sort of sympathy and it is somewhat superficial. Its feminist draw becomes disturbing at some point. Don’t forget that there’s literally not a man on screen, ever. “Sex and the City” has talked about all these issues before but in a somewhat more diplomatic way. Fewer characters and less inclination towards soap-opera would have made a whole difference.