The Other Woman

By Katherine Williams

Mailed on April 29, 2014


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Dear Leslie Mann
actress

Dear Leslie,

It's nice seeing more of you these days. You started acting way back in the 1990s, but recently - as a middle-aged woman - you've really made an impression onscreen. In a series of comedies that explore modern mid-life crises and relationship challenges like Knocked Up, 17 Again, This is 40, and now Nick Cassavetes' The Other Woman, you've established yourself as a fine comedian.

In The Other Woman you play Kate, a cuckolded housewife who finds out that her husband, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, is cheating on her with not one but two other women, impersonated by Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton.

Kate contacts the mistresses for details on her husband's philandering to discover that they ignored that he was married and feel cheated by him too. The three women decide to join forces to seek revenge. It's a classic screwball scenario with two mistresses and a wife conspiring to bring down a scumbag husband.

The story is partially about female solidarity - instead of enemies, wife and mistresses become friends. But it's far from feminist - female conversation in this movie revolves around one central thing: men.

And the film's leads are three hot women who wear mini-skirts and bikinis throughout the picture. Not exactly shattering Hollywood female stereotypes, if you know what I'm saying. Cassavetes banked on those close-ups of Kate Upton's walloping boobs and tight butt, I guarantee you that.

But you and Diaz make a strong comedic duo. You're laugh-out-loud funny. And Kate Upton is charming. Along with Nicki Minaj, Don Johnson, and the rest of the cast, a nice team was assembled to render this lighthearted and unpretentious comedy.

My special compliments go out to you, Leslie. Your character was a weak housewife on paper, but you made her strong and hilarious onscreen. This movie could have gone way wrong, but you helped steer it right. Nice job.

Yours truly,

Katherine

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